Laugh Think and Cry

Jim Valvano is the guy you might be able to identify from old highlight reels as that basketball coach running around the court hysterically enthusiastic after a last second shot won his N.C. State team an improbable Final Four Championship. He has always been one of those people I’ve looked up to without ever actually meeting. Mr. Valvano strikes me as a guy who looked at a day and assumed anything could happen. Even after cancer took his life in the 1990’s ‘The Jimmy V Foundation” is still working to find a cure for the dreaded disease.

He had such a philosophy to him. In an acceptance speech at the ESPY awards shortly before his death he asked the question, “How do you get from where you are to where you want to be?”

His proposition: An enthusiasm for life.

In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 it talks about how ‘there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.’ If you’ve been to a memorial service you’ve heard it; a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, etc.

Mr. Valvano knew that his days were numbered. “Time is very precious to me, I don’t have a lot of it left” he insisted during his speech. Perhaps the combination of ambition and urgency was why he believed that each and every day deserved changes of our emotional seasons in order to feel fully alive. He says...

“There are three things you should do every day of your life;

#1 Laugh – We should laugh everyday
#2 Think – We should spend some time in thought, everyday
#3 Cry – Let your emotions be moved to tears, they can be happiness or sorrow

Think about it, if you do all three of those in a day… that’s a heck of a day!” (See the whole speech here)

Laugh, Think, and Cry. This reminds me of a time years ago when I went with my family to visit my sick Granny in the nursing home for what was inevitably the final time. I remember saying goodbye to Granny and then tearing up as I watched my father say goodbye to his grandmother. In the midst of our mourning, another nursing home resident escaped her bed and nonchalantly (and now famously) walked past eating a slice of blueberry pie. This elderly woman, whom was easily pushing 90 years old, audibly broke wind for at least 10 seconds as she walked past us. Our tears of sorrow were instantly replaced by tears from an uncontrollable laughter. To this day I hold this event as proof that God thinks farts are funny, too.

Life’s a hypocrite if you can’t live the way it moves you.

Awhile back I made a list of things I wanted to always be true of me. It is part of an ongoing effort to be committed to the way life moves me; and to be congruent to who I believe I am. I often fall short of this, but I know I’ve at least given it some thought. After all, self knowledge provides the means for intentional living.

Laugh – One of my commitments is to not take myself too seriously. Our group has not been short of laughs on this trip. Mama, bless her heart, continues to lecture us before EVERY departure from her home “Andrew, I think I teach you once before but… If African man come, you run EXPRESS!!” I know it’s not funny to joke about safety, but if you can imagine a big African Mama doing an impression of ‘express running’ you will most likely laugh as well.

Think – How important it is to process what’s happening in our lives! I feel like I could pay off the national debt if I had a dollar for every time I ‘started journaling’. The problem is that we tend to look for ways to keep busy so that we can avoid thinking. So part of my commitment to being a lifelong learner is making sacrifices in order to spend some time in thought. I’m terrible at this. It always feels like such a chore at first, but once you get going then it’s always worth it. “The prudent give thought to their steps” (Proverbs 14:15).

The other part is a commitment to always having an opinion, but always being open to the fact that I might be wrong. The only way to have an opinion on something is to have given it some thought. You have to allot a time of pondering in order to determine that the Hokey Pokey isn’t actually what it’s all about. Just be open to others when they ultimately convince you that it is.

Cry – So I’ve been dubbed the sensitive one on the trip. Really? Even with girls here? I can surely thank BLo (my wonderful mother) for passing this attribute down. But if you think it’s not manly to cry then look up John 11:35, shortest verse in the Bible folks.

All things aside, there is an unmatched liberation in crying that makes you feel completely and fully alive. Our soul longs for it. Our soul’s very intention is for our heart to break for what breaks God’s. It’s why we are to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy” (Proverbs 126:5). Tears of sorrow AND tears of joy, a time to laugh AND a time to cry.

This week was a time to cry. This week we sat down with the overseers of the orphanage and one by one listened to the individual stories and circumstances of the Tuamken Orphans. They are sad and painful stories. Stories that you want to be aware of but at the same time wish to never hear. Over and over we lost the fight against tears as we wrote down the lives of the kids we love.

Bahati was born without one of his hands. When his father saw this he wanted nothing to do with him. Bahati is now 7 years old and hasn’t seen either of his parents since birth. He lives on his own in a shack with another Tuamken student, Carlous, who is 8 years old. A neighbor watches over them, but because she can only earn $35 per year by washing clothes she cannot afford to feed them. The meal Carlous and Bahati eat at school has to hold them over until the next school day. We’re uncertain what they eat on the weekends.

Maiko lives in neglect with his widowed mother who refuses to pay attention to him. Somewhat recently Maiko’s younger brother died from drowning in a pond. The brother’s death is attributed to the mother never watching or caring for them.
Witness and Happiness are twins. Their father worked as a security guard by night in an effort to make ends meet. He lost his life last year when thieves broke in on his watch and killed him.

Janet and her entire family are infected with HIV. Her father died from AIDS long ago leaving her mother widowed. We went to visit their home this week. Nobody came to the door. After neighbor boys let us in we found Janet’s mother and younger sister terribly ill and laying in bed. They were too frail to cook or eat, and asked us to pray. We knew God was listening.

Our kids, none older than 9 years, have experienced sickness, neglect, alcoholism, abandonment, drug addictions, prostitution, and murder. I’m convinced Jesus is the answer to all of these problems, and I’m awed by the joy and hope each of them has despite their circumstances.

Since the beginning James 1:27 has been our inspiration. “Religion that God the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in there distress and to keep from being polluted by the world.” After hearing the stories of our children it has become increasingly clear to me why God has us here.

“A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance” (Eccles. 3:4). There most definitely is a time for everything. This is to the God who laughs with us, to He who guides our thoughts, and to the same God who also cries with us.
This is to the God who is bigger than time itself, to Him be the glory!

I hope reading this has caused you laugh. I hope this caused you to think. And I hope this caused you to cry. Even more so, I hope that your life causes you these three everyday…

…to laugh uncontrollably,
…to think without borders,
… and to cry in sorrow and in joy.

I truly hope when your head hits the pillow at the end of each day you’ll say, ‘this was a heck of a day’.