Masks
I do not like to wear a mask
I find I cannot breathe
I cannot see when wearing one
Because my glasses steam
I do not like that when I smile
No one else can see
I hope someday to go without
And set my smiler free!
Gayle Swenson, May 20, 2020
Wearing a mask may help protect me from COVID-19, but it has lessened my ability to spread joy in the world because smiling is a way to spread it. Nowadays, for someone to know I’m smiling, they have to see it in my eyes or hear it in my voice under the cloth.
A simple smile can change someone’s day. It takes less effort to smile than to frown, I’m told, and smiling makes even the smiler feel better. It costs me nothing to smile, making it just about the free-est gift I can easily and quickly give to someone as we pass along life’s way. I do not like to cover my smile with a mask.
There’s a popular movie in which a family seated around the table is discussing how they see Jesus, and an adult says he likes to think of his Jesus as someone who is serious, but also likes to party. First of all, Jesus is who He is regardless of your ideas, dude, but in fact, Jesus is the party, because in His presence is fullness of joy!
Jesus embodied joy and spoke about it regularly. He experienced it in purity with the Father before becoming the Son of Man, and it gave Him strength to endure a fallen world for more than 33 years as well as the cross at the end of His mission on Earth. His joy wasn’t based on feelings of happiness, which come and go. Jesus’ joy was based on a trust that the Father who sent Him here knew what He was doing.
I define a smile as joy showing up on our face, and because of that, I think Jesus smiled – a lot. And because we also trust our lives to God, we can reflect joy from our faces to a fearful world through a smile. Face it, the world desperately needs to see those smiles!
One day, our smiles will again be free to spread the joy. And one day, we will see the perfect smile of Jesus.
And before you go…
If fighting the good fight against the coronavirus has robbed you of your smile, hang on, because The Scott Day Band will soon release a few new songs that could help you get it back! Stay tuned…
Yea! The SDB …. ready to hear you !!!
love this!!!!
Gayle, I miss you friend! So well said and I took off my mask as soon as it was not mandatory. I find the kids on my bus are having to learn again to smile, so sad. But we are on our way!
Cindi G.