Winter & Wellbeing: Finding Comfort in the Spirit of Hygge

Monday 12th of January has become one of those days that have been marked out on the yearly calendar. Not an official public holiday, there isn’t one until Easter. That said it is still a day we mark. It is known as “Blue Monday”, no I don’t mean the song by New Order. “Blue Monday” has become regarded as the hardest day of the year, after all the Christmas spirit has all gone and we are right in depths of winter. It is dark, it is cold and there is little light around, Spring seems so far away. The day light hours will increase over the coming weeks but still we must face winter. January and February can be difficult as we feel stuck in the cold on these dark winter evenings.

Last Monday morning I felt somewhat exhausted and little blue myself. It seems Blue Monday came a week early for me. Now there are good reasons for this I was not fully over the virus that struck me down over Christmas. Despite this feeling I went out into the snowy day with Molly and bumped into people and connected and chatted away. Folk wishing each other Happy New Year and talking about their Christmases. Molly enjoyed the snow, she loved it, that said she didn’t like the cold and wet. She was happy to get home and curl up in the comfort of her bed and warmth of the house. She slept much of the day.

I got on with some work and then took down my tree and decorations. As I did I felt some sadness, especially as I packed away all the gifts I had bought and wrapped for family, but was unable to give, as I was too unwell to travel at the time. So, my mood was low. I was feeling fatigued, my throat was sore too, which was troubling. I also had my share of concerns for folk in my life, particularly two friends who are struggling, the two communities I serve that have their challenges and the wider world in which we all live. Nothing new here. The choir I have joined and loved joining was getting back together that night. I considered not going and then thought to myself no you will enjoy it, have a little faith.

Thank goodness I did. It was lovely to catch up with folk who I hadn’t seen for a while; it was wonderful to connect and share our tales and of course to sing. I found comfort, connection, community and joy. I got right into what I was doing. I really got into it. In fact, the choir leader said at one point. “I don’t want to single anyone out, but what I am looking for from you all is the energy that Danny is putting into this.” Apparently, I was giving it the appropriate amount of “sass”. This led to much laughter. It was just what I needed. I needed the joy of singing and the comfort of community. My soul needed it and gave me a wonderful sense of well-being.

This got me thinking of the importance of well-being, especially at this time of year. I know my physical, mental and spiritual well-being are interconnected. If one is out of sync, then they can all be. I have noticed this again over the last few weeks.

Often at the beginning of the year we resolve to live more healthily, gym membership sores at this time of the year in an attempt to improve our physical lives. I know I would certainly benefit from getting physically healthier. Physical well-being is of course on many of our minds this winter too, there does seem to have been more than the average number of nasty viruses about that have ruined one or two of our Christmases.

So yes physical well-being is definitely on our minds at this time of the year.

Now while there is a great deal of talk of improving our physical well-being, which is of course vital, there seems to be less talk of taking care of our spiritual well-being, which actually may well be more vital. If I have learnt anything in life I know that my emotional, mental and physical well-being rests on my spiritual health.

I remember a wise man saying to me twenty or more years ago, “If you are spiritually well, the rest will be taken care of.” How true this is. I learnt many years ago not to put the horse before the cart, a lesson I have never forgotten.

Spiritual well-being is vital. How do I know this? Well for many years it was something I lacked and as a result my life was devoid of all meaning and connection. I was just an empty vessel blown about in the storms of life. I was lonely, I was lost and I was ruled by fear of pretty much everything. This is no longer the case and the reason for this is that I found both and anchor and rudder as well as the ability to set my sails accordingly when the winds really blow. The key to this is spiritual well-being.

Medical practioners are increasingly recognising the potential benefits that spiritual well-being can bring. A spiritually healthy person tends to be at ease with themselves and comfortable in their own skin and surroundings, they have a developing awareness of themselves and those around them, they tend to act with patience, honesty, kindness, hope, wisdom, joy and creativity. They have a healthy relationships with the people they share their lives with as well as a hope filled view of life and a sense of inner peace and acceptance of problems we face in life. While their recovery from both illness and bereavement tend to be less problematic.

Spiritual well-being is vital to a life of meaning and purpose and yet so many people in our increasing secularised age neglect this. Yes, many folks may have a near perfect buffed body and a sharp mind and yet they can still feel empty, lonely and utterly disconnected.

Why is this? Well I suspect it is because increasingly we neglect our souls.

Now one sign of healthy well-being in my own being is the quality of my humour. I noticed last Monday morning I was in a deeply serious mood. This though was not the case by the end of the day. I was feeling well again, I was in good humour. Being out in life and community and set me free from myself and restored my well-being.

"Life is far too serious a business to be taken too seriously. I remember at school an old biology teacher telling me that a man who cannot laugh at himself will always struggle. It is something else I have never forgotten. I hated him for it at the time, because I knew I took myself far too seriously and just couldn’t free myself from this blight. I just took everything so personally. Thankfully I learnt a long time ago that if ever I want a good laugh I just have to listen to myself.

More and more I see clearly that one of the key barometers of my spiritual well-being is the health of my humour. When I am in good humour I find that I am in good health.

As you know I am not alone in this, it’s an ancient idea. As I have shared many times before, to be in good humour is to enjoy good health. The word “Humour” is derived from a medieval medical term for fluids of the human body. It has its roots in the ‘old’ French word ‘humor’, derived from the Latin ‘umere’. Physicians of the day believed that we had four different types of internal fluids that they called ‘humors’ and it was these that determined our physical and mental health. Therefore, if a person became ill it was believed that their humors were out of balance. So, to be in good humour is to literally be in good health, or at least that’s what it used to mean.

Now of course this isn’t why I and others have suffered some horrible winter viruses. That said I suspect that good humour might just help us through the winter blues.

Everyone knows I love language; I love the roots and meaning of words, humour being a classic example. I especially love how words, like humour, have either changed in meaning, or somehow got lost or disappeared. New words, or at least new words to our culture are also of interest to me. One word that has come into prominence in recent years is Hygge (pronounced hew-geh). It is a word of Scandinavian origin, primarily Danish but also Norwegian. According to Louisa Thomson Brits in “The Book of Hygge” Hygge is defined as “a quality of presence and an experience of belonging and togetherness. It is a feeling of being warm, safe, comforted and sheltered. Hygge is an experience of selfhood and communion with people and places that anchors and affirms us, gives us courage and consolation”. This is a feeling I felt powerfully when back with the choir last Monday. It is something I find in spiritual community too. It gives me a sense of well-being. Interestingly last Autumn the choir recorded a version of “Park-Life”, originally by Blur. We also created a video, it’s aim being to help promote the Oyez art collective now based at the town hall where the choir practices. The cry throughout being “Get some community”. It got me thinking about a line in the original “Parklife” “It gives me a sense of enormous well-being”. This is something we all strive for. This is at the heart of Hygge. I feel that there is much that we can learn from Hygge, that can help us to improve our well-being as individuals and community.

Hygge (hew-geh) helps Danes imagine who they are and how they should be together, there is something of collective and not merely individual about it. Hygge began to come to prominence globally due to an increase in fascination with the Scandinavian countries ever since the launch of the UN World Happiness Report in 2012, in which both Denmark and Norway have never been out of the top three with regards to levels of happiness amongst their population. Could it be down to this concept of Hygge? Maybe!

So where does Hygge come from? There are various theories as to the origin of Hygge. It appears to be rooted in the nineteenth century. Some trace it back to the Biedermeier movement, which developed as a reaction to the early nineteenth century revolutionary passion, throughout Europe. During this period artists and designers returned to the home and developed their private lives as a reaction against the public pretentions of the upper class. Another theory suggests that it was influenced by what was considered to be a more liberal guilt free Protestantism that developed in Denmark in comparison to their Scandinavian neighbours, which was established by the theologian N.F.S Grudtvig. It also developed under the social democratic and egalitarian values of the Danish people.

The central concept of the “Hygge Life”, according to Louisa Thomsen Britts in “The Book of Hygge”, is “a quality of presence and a feeling of belongness and togetherness. It is a feeling of being warm, safe, comforted and sheltered.” It is a state of being, a way of being and living in the world and not something that you can possess. It is a quality of hominess, of being, of welcome and hospitable, of being warm, safe and sheltered and enables the other to feel that way in your company. It is not a uniquely Danish quality and the Danes themselves do not consider it to be so, it is a quality that you will find at the core of the great religious and spiritual traditions, it is hospitality in its most basic form. Something that has perhaps become lost in our individualistic and fast paced lives.

Hygge has been described as the art of creating intimacy, cosy togetherness and taking pleasure in the presence of soothing things. Although it is often developed through cosy material things it is more about creating a particular atmosphere or to shape an experience. Hyyge is about creating a communal atmosphere of simplicity and presence, it is about living by soulful presence. It is about how to be with each other and nurturing those relationship so as to build respect, goodwill to all and hope, with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul. It is about being good neighbours to all; it is about creating a quiet space, in the rush and push of life to enable our soulfulness to come out of hiding and express itself fully in life, thus inviting the other to do so too. In so doing we will truly be enabled to love our neighbours as ourselves. We need such places as we live in and through the storms of life. There are many storms in life, both literally and figuratively.

Hygge is about a love and appreciation of the simple, close to hand things in life. It encourages gratitude for the everyday moments in life. It is about equality and egality, about working together. It has deeply spiritual qualities, but earthy real ones. It recognises the worth of each person, it desires peace and harmony, equality for all, a heartfelt appreciation of the natural world. It builds trust and connection between people; it is about harmonious living. It celebrates the simple pleasure of being alive wherever you find yourself, encouraging soulful presence. To me this is the essence of spiritual living. By living this way, you encourage others to come and join with you, to come as you are, exactly as you are. Hygge is about creating intentional intimacy, intimacy with ourselves, with God, with each other and with all life. It is about living by the Divine commandment, to love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

Hygge draws meaning from the fabric of ordinary living. It's a way of acknowledging the sacred in the secular, of giving something ordinary a special context, spirit, and warmth, and taking time to make it extraordinary. I invite us to adopt an attitude of Hygge, now and in the days yet to come. It can begin in the midst of winter, perhaps tomorrow on Blue Monday. It will enable us to touch those deeper aspects of our own humanity and help hold one another in a communal spiritual hug. It will give us all an enormous sense of well-being and don’t we all want to be well.

May we all be well, may we live by well-being.

Let us live in and by the spirit of Hygge.

Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this piece

Living Spiritually Alive: Wholeness, Health & Well-Being

Last Sunday was a long day, a full day, a busy day. I don’t just mean my usual duties, but all sorts of other things going on, folk contacting me, having to carry many different things in my heart, mind and soul. My phone didn’t stop pinging, nor did my interactions and conversations abate. Late in the day I found myself “ligging” out on my settee, eating and half watching a drama on tv. I felt satisfied, if exhausted. I found myself making all kinds of noises in my mouth and throat, beautiful soothing sounds. I like to do this when I am relaxing. I thought to myself I really do need to learn “Overtone” singing. I was creating some wonderful bottom end notes, just smiling at myself in a state of bliss. As I went to bed, I decided I would not set my alarm, I would wake “naturally”. Can anyone really awaken unnaturally?

Well, I was obviously exhausted as I slept through until almost 9am, this is unheard of for me. I began my day in the usual manner, this included sharing my “It comes in the little things” reflection on Facebook, a spiritual discipline I have kept up since early December. How I have delighted in so many other people joining in. I had much to do that day, including dealing with many of the pressing issues left over from the day before. That said despite these many challenges I felt in good spirits.

As I ventured into the day the following poem “Any Morning” by William Stafford” was singing in my heart and soul.

Here it is:

“Any Morning” by William Stafford

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won't even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

Any Morning Can Be a Little Corner of Heaven

I could feel that little corner of heaven that morning, as I had the night before, despite the very real concerns and worries close at hand and in the wider world. Worries and trouble that have been very much with me this week. Not that I have been downbeat at all this week. I have felt connected, in good shape actually, with a real sense of well-being. I’ve found myself humming and singing to myself a lot this week, particularly the line “Groovy times are here again” by The Clash

Later that day I found myself watching the BBC news. Now amongst the more troubling news stories this last Monday there was one that was heartening. I found a little piece of heaven if you like. It was a story about the life of the wonderfully named Mercedes Gleitze, who was the first British woman to swim the English Channel in 1927, she was also the first person to swim the Straits of Gibraltar, later that year. Two achievements that although they were celebrated at the time, were unknown to her own children and grandchildren. A film has just been completed celebrating her life and a “Blue Plaque” has been unveiled at her former Brighton seas-side home.

The news item was shot on Brighton beach, on a freezing cold January morning. On the beach were scores of people going for their daily dip in the freezing sea. They are not alone. It seems the be the “in thing” this winter. I know people that go “wild swimming” in Pickmere out in Cheshire, every week; I know a whole load of folk who went there on New Year’s Day. I am told it is incredibly invigorating and those who do it say it makes you feel “so alive”. I understand that there are many health benefits to cold water swimming such as, boosting the immune system, creating endorphins that lift the mood, improving circulation and libido, the burning of calories, reduction of stress as well helping create a sense of community in the sense it increases socialisation.

I have not been tempted to take a dip myself, at least not yet. I am probably too scarred by holidays in Scarborough as a child and the cold North sea; freezing cold even in the middle of summer. That said I know I have said I would never do things in the past and then got into them. So I ought to learn that you should never say never. So, we shall see. That said I do know that I am more one for a long hot bath, after exercising. I love to loll and listen to music very loudly post workout, before eating. It all contributes to a deep sense of connection and well-being and enables me to fully engage with a very busy life. The messages, the phone calls, the encounters and conversations haven’t stopped all week, there is so much going on. I need this time.

At the beginning of the year so many of us resolve to live healthier lives, gym membership sores, as does attendance at slimming groups and their like. General physical well-being is often on our minds during the winter months, especially early January.

Now while there is a great deal of talk of improving our physical well-being, which is of course vital, there seems to be less talk of taking care of our spiritual well-being, which actually may well be more important. If I have learnt anything in life I know that my emotional, mental and physical well-being rests on my spiritual health. I discovered that if I take care of my spiritual well-being, as a result, the rest just seems to take care of itself. I never forget the importance of first things first.

The purpose of developing our spiritual well-being, is to improve our capacity to live in this life. I agree with my esteemed colleague Rev Bill Darlison who claims that the purpose of spirituality is to increase our sensitivity to life. Not so much transcend this life but to enable us to engage more fully in it. This is something that no one else can do for us, it is our task, our responsibility. Spiritual practice helps us to do so. As the Zen proverb says “no one else can eat your food for you, no one else can go to the toilet for you, and no one else can live your life for you. And, of course, no one else can do your practice for you.

Maybe this is something we could think about as we move into the year. To find ways to improve our spiritual well-being, to find a practice and stick with it, so as to increase our sensitivity to life and thus to live more spiritually alive. It doesn’t need to be anything drastic like cold water swimming, it could be something much simpler. I am continuing my daily practice of paying attention to and sharing the “little things”. It has made a huge difference. For every single day I am noticing more and more of these “little things” and I am finding so many other folk doing the same and sharing them with me and one another. It is a wonderful delight.

To live spiritually alive requires that we increase our sensitivity to life. In so doing it enables us to live more actively in the world and thus our lives will feel more meaningful, meaning filled. It is this that will give us a sense of well-being, of health. Health a word that has its root in the Old English word “haelp” meaning “wholeness, a being whole, sound or well” from the Proto-Germanic “halitho” meaning “whole, uninjured, of good omen”, from older words meaning holy, sacred or healed. In Latin it shared its root with salvation.

Healing, wholeness, health are about being in relationship with ourselves, one another and life. It is about increasing our sensitivity to all of this, this is true well-being. When we live this way we feel spiritually alive, as opposed to being estranged from life.

Spiritual well-being occurs in such relationships, relationships with ourselves, each other, life and whatever we believe is at the core of life, this is where true healing occurs. This does not mean that life does not affect us, there is no cure to life so to speak. If anything it will affect us increasingly. It does not mean the real troubles of life are taken away. What happens is that by being in relationship with all life, our sensitivity to life increases and we experience wholeness, well-being, health, and are thus touched by healing. We are filled with love, in life’s real challenges, and in so doing we know spiritual comfort and thus know what it means to be whole. We will feel wholly alive, we will live holy lives.

Health, well-being is not an absence of trouble of illness, instead it is a sense of being fully alive, like the feeling that those wild swimmers describe.

So, think about it. Can you think of one thing that can help improve your spiritual well-being and thus increase your sensitivity to life and to share it with those in your life. Can you attempt to stick at it day by day. Go on give it a go. I would love to hear about it, as I am certain others will too.

We each find our own bliss, our own groovy times, we rejoice in our own way…

So let’s go seek and discover, live wholly alive, live holy lives.

Below is a video devotion based 

on the material in this "blogspot"

Well-Being, Health & Humour



I had a bit of a lie in on Monday morning. I needed it, I was following doctor’s orders actually, as Aled Jones (retired doctor) commanded me to do so. The last four weeks of Advent, Christmas and New Year have been the busiest I have ever known. I have loved them for their fullness, but they have taken their toll physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. So I went to bed on Sunday night and decided not to set my alarm. I awoke naturally the next morning at 9am, and I felt great for it. I showered and ate a good hearty breakfast. As I did I turned on my computer and instantly read a post on Facebook pointing to an article in Daily Mirror featuring myself and the other Slimming World Awards winners and our top tips on weight loss. Top Tips from Weight Loss Champions It is obviously aimed at those attempting to be healthier for the New Year, following the over indulgence of Christmas. I then received a text message from my personal trainer saying he was back working following his back injury and asking if I wanted to book a session. I did and booked in for the next morning. By 11am I wandered down to the gym to get started back into fitness. Well when I arrived I was utterly overwhelmed, I’ve never seen the place so full. I felt this strange first day at school feeling, very uncomfortable. I tried to get going but couldn’t really and left before too long. Thankfully I felt different the next day and soon got back into things. I also know that very soon attendance at the gym will return to its normal levels.

At the beginning of the year so many of us resolve to live healthier lives, gym membership sores at this time of the year. As does attendance at slimming groups and their like. General physical well-being is often on our minds during the winter months, especially early January. We all seem more vulnerable to ill health at this time of year. I remember well two winters back when I, along with many others, suffered a severe bout of illness, gastric flu in my case, which took over a month to fully recover from, I have never felt so ill. So yes physical well-being is definitely on my mind as it is on so many of our minds at this time of the year.

Now while there is a great deal of talk of improving our physical well-being, which is of course vital, there seems to be less talk of taking care of our spiritual well-being, which actually may well be more important. If I have learnt anything in life I know that my emotional, mental and physical well-being rests on my spiritual health. I discovered that if I take care of my spiritual well-being, as a result, the rest just seems to take care of itself. I never forget the importance of first things first.

Now this might sound a little funny to some, but one of the many measures of my spiritual well-being is my sense of humour. I know that during the most barren periods of my life I was almost completely devoid of humour, I was utterly self - absorbed and took myself far too seriously. I was weighed down by life, by myself, everything just seemed so heavy going. Improving my spiritual well-being has enabled me to lighten up or maybe lightening up has helped me to become spiritually healthier. As Forrest Church stated “"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly," wrote the English author G. K. Chesterton. By the same token, surely the devil fell on account of his gravity. What works for angels can’t help but be good for us. Levity addresses worry’s tendency to obsess; scoffs at the demon of perfectionism; and exposes (as our enemy, not our friend) the self-absorption that lies at the root of insecurity and unhappiness. When we laugh—especially at ourselves—we fill the present with instant joy.”

Life is far too serious a business to be taken too seriously. I remember at school an old biology teacher telling me that a man who cannot laugh at himself will always struggle. It is something I have never forgotten. I hated him for it at the time, because I knew I took myself far too seriously and just couldn’t free myself from this blight. I just took everything so personally. Thankfully I learnt a long time ago that if ever I want a good laugh I just have to listen to myself.
More and more I see clearly that one of the key barometers of my spiritual well-being is the health of my humour. When I am in good humour I find that I am in good health.

It seems I am not alone. To be in good humour is to enjoy good health or at least this is once what “good humour” literally meant. The very word “Humour” is actually derived from a medieval medical term for fluids of the human body. It has its roots in the ‘old’ French word ‘humor’, derived from the Latin ‘umere’. Physicians of the day believed that we had four different types of internal fluids that they called ‘humors’ and it was these that determined our physical and mental health. Therefore if a person became ill it was believed that their humors were out of balance. So to be in good humour is to literally be in good health, or at least that’s what it used to mean.

Now I’m not someone who is very good at poker. Why? You may well ask. Well because I don’t have a very good poker face. How I am feeling and experiencing life is written all over my face. You can tell just by looking at me if I’m a bit too lost in myself and my seriousness and whether I’m living openly and in life, in the joy of life, in good humour, good health. I know I aint much fun to be around when I’m not in very good humour.

I love the human face, especially when it is caught up in laughter in humour. There is something beautiful about the comedic face. It seems I’m not alone in this. John O’Donohue, who died this very week in January 4th 2008, loved the human face, he saw in it a Divine quality and loved it when it was caught up in laughter.

He said that:

“There’s something really subversive in laughter and in the smile on the human face. It’s lovely and infectious to be in the company of someone who can smile deeply.

I think a smile comes from the soul. And I also love its transitive kind of nature—that if you’re in the presence of someone who has a happiness and a laughter about them, it’ll affect you and it’ll call that out in you as well.

Your body relaxes completely when you’re having fun. I think one of the things that religion has often prevented us from doing is having really great fun. To be here, in a way—despite the sadness and difficulty and awkwardness of individual identity—is to be permanently invited to the festival of great laughter."

Like John I see a quality of the Divine in humour and laughter. I believe that this is because it is a quality of being fully alive. It is an expression of unguarded abandonment and it is infectious in a healthy and loving way. It encourages this aliveness in others too. Laughter comes from that eternal spirit that is a part of our common humanity.

Humour can not only brings healing but it can also bring people together...it can be infectious...Here are a couple of wonderful examples...One from Test Match Special

 

I have heard it said that God is the greatest comedian of them all and that if you truly want to experience God it is through laughter. I’m sure that you’ve all heard the expression “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

This brings to mind that old Depeche Mode song “Blasphemous Rumours”, “I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that god’s got a sick sense of humour”. Many see God as a creative mishevious artist and that it is through such activity that we ourselves can become intune with the Divine. As Sara Maitland wrote in “A Big-Enough God”

“God is not careful. Theology is careful, and it ought to be; but God is not careful, is not bound by rules. This double-dealing magic-weaving careless God, this God of strange codes and complex twistings of imagery and power, this God whose sense of humour so often seems to outweigh any sense of ethical propriety, this playful God: this is the God of the artists.”

This brings to mind a Meme I recently saw posted on facebook, which mischievously asked the question: “How enlightened are you?”

IF....

If you can live without caffeine,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him or her,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender preference, or politics,
Then you have almost reached the same level of spiritual development as your dog!

How many of us can honestly say we are as enlightened as our dogs, as spiritually healthy? There is something humbling and beautifully amusing about this little bit of wisdom. Made me laugh too…It came at a perfect time when I was getting a little too serious and lost in my own and the underwear of others…It doesn’t help getting lost in such things…
It;s a bit messy and not very pleasant...

Humour is so vital, remember it means to be in good health and it is healing too…It’s amazing what healing comes when I’m in good humour or maybe actually when I’m in good humour it is surely a sign of good health…

Voltaire wrote “The art of medicine consists of keeping the patient amused while nature heals the disease.”

He recognised, as my biology teacher did, that humour and laughter are good for your health. We all feel better after a good old laugh, it must be because those humours are really flowing. The problem is though that our sense of humour can abandon us often when we need it the most.

If only we could get our “humours” flowing again. If we could our bodily health would improve immeasurably. To quote Josh Billings "There ain’t much fun in medicine, but there’s a heck of a lot of medicine in fun." We would relax more and as a result our stress levels would lessen and as a result it would seem that our immune systems improve. Research has revealed that laughter has a positive influence on our immunoglobin levels and immune system in general. As I look back at my last bout if real ill health, two January’s back it was at a time when I’d lost my sense of humour somewhat, I’d gotten a little too serious and self absorbed and had worn myself out with “stress of it all”. I became really ill and once again had to surrender to it all. This did eventually lead to positive things as I began to look after myself better. Included in this was to play a little more and spend a little more time doing activities that bring me joy, that make me happy.  This helped me on my general getting physically fit and healthy journey. I know I would not have been able to sustain it with out first of all getting spiritually fit.

I have discovered that spiritual freedom brings with it the ability to laugh and not to take yourself too seriously, or is it laughter that helps bring about spiritual freedom? Life is a very serious business, far too serious a business to be taken too seriously in fact. Now please don’t get me wrong I’m not suggesting that we ignore the troubles present in life, my word I certainly do not. What I’m actually saying is that we must be careful not to get too caught up in them or weighed down by them. In order to be of service to life and others requires us to be in good health and good humour. We need to take care of ourselves wholly, body, mind and spirit. It begins with spirit I have learnt. To enjoy good mental and physical health requires good spiritual health and a healthy spirit requires air to breath. It enjoys freedom and aliveness and it often begins with laughter.

I’m going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with a story…I hope it leaves you in good spirit, in good health, in good humour…

A burglar broke into a house one night. He shined his torch around, looking for valuables, and when he picked up a CD player to place in his sack, a strange disembodied voice echoed from the dark saying, "Jesus is watching you."

He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his torch off, and froze. When he heard nothing more after a bit, he shook his head, promised himself a holiday after the next big job, then clicked the torch back on and began searching for more valuables. Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires, clear as a bell he heard, "Jesus is watching you."

Freaked out, he shined the torch around frantically, looking for the source of the voice. Finally, in the corner of the room, his torch beam came to rest on a parrot. "Did you say that?" he hissed at the parrot.

"Yep," the parrot confessed then squawked, "I'm trying to warn you."

The burglar relaxed. "Warn me huh? Who are you?"

"Moses," replied the parrot.

"Moses?" the burglar laughed. "What kind of stupid people would name a parrot 'Moses'?"

The bird answered, "Probably the same kind of people that would name a Rotweiller 'Jesus'."

I wish you good health and good humour.