"Who said meditation is supposed to be serious? Who said life is supposed to be all serious?"

Larissa Kaye Batten (llbeara@aol.com) writes "Soul Food," a weekly column for SpiritSite.com.  

Larissa is a prolific writer whose work has been featured in several publications.  

I often meditate to the sound of a soulful song on a CD and to the sloppy kisses of my labrador retriever called Winnie the Pooh.

"C’mon play!" Winnie cries as she nudges me with a stuffed animal falling out of her jaws. "Play mommie!" Then she drops the animal into my lap and waits. "C’mon play!"

But I am too serious in my meditation to play along with her.

"C’mon you just woke up play with me mommie!" Winnie whimpers.

But I am too intense to play with her.

Then I laugh. I can’t help myself. I toss her toy back at her. I shove her away and wait for her to bounce back in my direction.

And then I remember. En-joy! Laugh! Play! Love! Who said meditation is supposed to be serious? Who said life is supposed to be all serious? Who said I should wake in the morning with an intense disposition and a muzzle over my laughter and joy?

Winnie, my dog, my friend, my play angel, reminds me every morning to be joyful, to be grateful, to be happy, to laugh, to play, to en-joy my life.

I finish my meditation, but I am no longer the same. I have always had a predisposition toward seriousness and intensity, toward pain, toward cutting off the supply of joy in my life.

But if I am to truly listen to my morning meditation, I must pay attention to all the signs. And I cannot help but pay attention to the sloppy play of my labrador retriever. Winnie knows how to retrieve joy, and Winnie knows how to deliver it right to me.

Winnie is not the first messenger in my life to remind me to play. I have been told since I was a child to enjoy my life more.

"Lighten up," friends have told me.

I have been told to "relax", "loosen up", ‘laugh a little", "put a smile on your face", "enjoy yourself", "let the joy in", and on and on.

My mother has always signed cards the same way when they have been accompanied with a gift: "Enjoy!" She has never forgotten the exclamation point either.

A few years ago, a message passed through my spirit and hands and fell onto paper. "Joy’s a comin’!", the message said. I hadn’t a clue. But sure enough, just around the corner, joy bounded into my life.

"Why don’t you invite joy into your life," my friend Vivian told me a few years back.

"Alright," I agreed, "I will." Not that I had any faith in such an invitation. How could I invite joy into my life?

Retrospectively, I realize I did need to invite joy into my life. I had shoved it away for so long that I needed to let it know it was now welcome.

"Joy’s a comin!" What find words. What a fine message. What a fine truth.

I have only been able to hold joy back for so long. I believe now that the power of joy far surpasses the power of pain. Why? I believe joy’s power is greater because joy is what God wants for me and what God wants for us all.

I can make only one amend now to that belief. I need to want joy for myself. We need to want joy for ourselves.

Joy is as available as my Winnie the Pooh’s sloppy kisses – but I need to let joy know how welcome it is!

Welcome home, sloppy Winnie dog kisses.

Welcome home, joy.

Amen.

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