Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

• Romans 15:13

So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

• John 16:22

“Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning-either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Asian each one of the children felt something jump in his inside. … Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realise that it is the beginning of the holidays were the beginning of summer.”

• C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Sehnsucht is German for an intense yearning, longing, or craving.  It is more specific in craving than fernweh, which is basically the opposite of homesickness (far away sickness?).  In other words, a longing to be out there, but not specifically out “where.”  When I wrote about Sehnsucht before, I said there is a lot in the writings of C.S. Lewis where he long for Joy.

Here, reading an excerpt from the Chronicles of Narnia, we see the four children who went into the wardrobe and came out into Narnia thinking about what meeting Aslan, the lion, was like.

Aslan is the Jesus figure in the allegory and fantasy tale.  And I can relate.  The last episode of Sehnsucht spoke of C.S. Lewis always searching for something.  He wanted joy in his life, and he finally found it in Jesus Christ.

In my testimony that I gave on the fiftieth anniversary of becoming born-again, I spoke of our family losing the turkey farm.  My Dad went on the road, repairing other people’s poultry equipment while trying to sell off our equipment, most as scrap metal, bottom dollar.  My parents were severely in debt but refused to declare bankruptcy due to the social stigma, yet, everyone in town thought they had done so.  Since I was in first and second grade during this transition, all I ever remember was that my parents never smiled, never laughed.  I gravitated to every silly sitcom on the television set, to find humor, laughter, anything to change the mood in the house.  What else would a child of only one-digit number of years to do?

Then as a sixteen-year-old teenager, I fell in love with Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In.  The incident happened when the show was on, and I have this idea in my head that it happened when Ruth Buzzi, as Gladys Ormphby, slapped Arte Johnson, as Tyrone F. Horneigh, over the head with her purse.  My mother clutched her heart.  She could not breathe.  She was unresponsive.  I went to the phone and started looking up ambulance in the yellow pages when she said, “Put the phone down, idiot!  I was just laughing.”  In nearly ten years, I had never seen her do that.  What was I to think?  Of course, in my comedy night where I gave my testimony, I reenacted the incident and made it a comedy routine, but it was fairly accurate.

When you dedicate your life to seeing your parent smile for the first time and when that happens, and they have a painful look on their face, you wonder if the quest was worth it?

Actually, my all time favorite Laugh In joke was told by Goldie Hawn, who said only three words.  My mother got excessively angry and left the room when I laughed.  Goldie Hawn is on stage, and she is holding a candle horizontally.  The wick at either end of the candle is lit.  Goldie stared at the candle for a few seconds and then said, “Mother was wrong!”

Yes, my mother laughed for the first time in roughly ten years, but she did not laugh at every joke.

But jokes give you a little mirth for only a moment.

What C.S. Lewis talked about with Aslan, and in turn about Jesus, is that kind of Joy is ever lasting.  It does not depend upon circumstances.

And at first, when it first happens, you can’t wipe the smile off your face.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.