MY daughter was furious as she walked into the room. “What are you doing dad?” she exclaimed. “Wagging the dog’s tail!” I replied very matter of fact, as I physically held my bewildered dog and forcibly shook his tail. “But why?” she asked. “Trying to make it happy,” I said. “Don’t dogs wag their tails when they’re happy?” My daughter nodded. “So I’m inducing happiness by wagging his tail!”
My daughter didn’t see my point of view, nor did my dog, and nor actually did I, but I was thinking of those round, yellow happy face stickers accompanied by a one- word message, ‘Smile.’ It implied that you could put a smile on your face as easily as you could put a hat on your head!
True to a point; a good actor can look happy even when his heart is breaking! A plastic surgeon can cut and paste a permanent smile on the face of his patient. In fact there’s a man who sits in an office I go to frequently who at first glance made me think was always happy to see me because of his huge smile till I realized his smile was the result of a stroke which had left his face paralyzed with a permanent smile!
“Wag your tail!” I commanded my dog in the same way somebody with a smile badge was ordering me to smile. Oh yes, like laughter clubs with their insane, loud, maniacal laughter; forcing members to wag their tails and be happy! I believe a genuine smile comes naturally from within. It reflects a joy that remains even when a person has few of life’s material blessings. It comes from knowing God. The man or woman who knows God can smile, come what may.
How you may ask is that possible. The man who trusts God, knows that whatever happens to him can be tackled with the help of his Father above. He smiles because he can feel the abiding presence of the Creator around him all the time.
I received an e-mail the other day, from an American reader saying my ideas of God were too spiritually simplistic. Aha my friend smile, because it’s we who make religion so complicated. It’s so sickeningly sweetly simple that one can only smile at the sheer wonder of it all. I end with a little verse I have borrowed: A smile can conceal our pain, but not lighten our despair, but trust in God gives inner peace, and smiles beyond compare..!
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
