The Legitimacy of Sadness: Why Blue is so Cool

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:32:15 -0800

In the Greek pantheon of emotions, Love has the power of Zeus, Compassion is the lovely Aphrodite, and Anger kicks butt like Ares—but Sadness? He’s just a hated Cyclops, weeping out of that one ugly eye, a monster that nobody likes at all.

Sadness is the emotion that Americans like to eliminate right away. If our children are sad, we try to fix them with candy and distractions. If our best friend has the blues, we invite him to Happy Hour. A spouse feeling down? Well, here’s some shopping money, a round of golf, maybe a massage. We are uncomfortable with sadness; it’s such a downer to everyone in its radius.

Poets seem to understand the beauty of sadness better than the rest of us, but some are really just happy pretending they are sad. Bands like Atreyu (who sing lines like It only hurts when I breathe) capitalize on youthful angst with an almost self-conscious joy, and when the Smiths sing My gut is burning. Won't you find me some water? / Hey,just forget it . . . Can you bring me gasoline? their hyper-tragic lines betray a twisted kind of happiness

Yet John Donne, a profound 16^th century metaphysical poet whom I reckon never wore an emo haircut or painted his fingernails black, wrote “Affliction is a treasure and scarce any man hath enough of it.” I believe he was closer to getting at the real paradox of sadness: that when we try to kill suffering too quickly, we short circuit the natural order of things.

And what is the natural order of things? It’s first moving in rhythm to Ecclesiastes chapter 3, where there is a time for everything under the sun. It’s experiencing both suffering and joy, the juxtaposition of which ultimately defines both. It’s found in the book of James which makes the audacious claim, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

Solomon writes, “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting” and later that “a sad face is good for the heart.” He even asserts that “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.” If this is so, the Bible is downright anti-American in a land where we believe a little deep breathing and a martini can put a smile back on yourface. So why does he write such a thing? Perhaps because unrelenting happiness here on earth is artificial, a counterfeit condition which deadens our spiritual nerve endings.

Of course, sadness is not a permanent state; we pass through the valley rather than taking up residence there. We have much to do in God’s kingdom, and a life of permanent asceticism can make us self-absorbed. But natural sadness clears a pathway for God to speak to us in ways that happiness doesn’t allow. In my house, my husband and I have taught ourselves to stop asking, “Why is this happening,” and instead look at each other and say, “I wonder what God is up to?” Our children, our best friends, our mothers and father—should we not leave them alone for a time to live in their sadness, to lose a night or two of sleep, to weep? There will be time to come alongside and help them hoist the burden, but perhaps not in the early hours before God has had time to speak. He is up to something.

I read a story in my local newspaper about a young man who not long ago decided to walk across California like John Muir. When asked what the high points were, he offered a few stunning memories of euphoria and beauty, but insisted that slogging through the repetitive, monotonous Central Valley gave him reference points against which to measure his occasional joy. Ah, I thought. There’s wisdom in his experience. The metaphor almost writes itself.

My essays have a cool way of leaving markings for me to follow. In looking over the scores of postings over the last several years, I can see the line where the tide rises and falls. I’ve been inspired by Love, Compassion, Anger, and yes, even that hated monster Sadness. I am in a slow, dark season but God’s life is still stirring within me. The spring will come again, but not before his work is done.

I Stole a Yoga Mat

Abbie Smith — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:23:46 -0700

The sun was shining bright and my post-yoga-class limbs were loosened-up for a new day. The better news though, was that while leaving the studio I’d acquired a new mat.

“Finders keepers, losers weepers,” I sung in my head. “So-long $19.99 sucker from Target that always makes me slip.” This new mat is posh and sturdy and made in Malaysia. My soundtrack was cut-short though, when bragging of the story to my sister Courtney the next day.

“You what!? You took that from the lost and found, Abb…what are you thinking!? That’s somebody else’s mat…good mat…and they’re probably a wreck about losing it.”
“Umm…oh…I…uh, thought you’d be excited. I was thinking that somebody lost something, and I found it, so now it’s mine. Their loss, my gain kinda thing?”
“Oh my god!” she exclaimed, “As if the lost and found is for everyone’s free taking?”
“Yeah,” I said hesitantly, still hoping to find the loophole that made me right. “Exactly.”

Much to my dismay, the conversation joined a kitchen-wide conversation a few hours later, inviting a wider critique on my apparently pilfering ways (for which my shame gage was slowly rising). And although yes, moralistic lenses concluded, one could take from the lost and found, as if a dumpster of pearls to bless the public, no, that wasn’t the lost and found's intention. In short, I had seen something better than what I had. And wanted it. So took what wasn’t mine.

I stole a yoga mat.

Jason Mraz has been flooding my ipod lately, and especially his latest album: “We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things.” This title isn’t pretty, and yet it’s human. It doesn’t justify the paradox of my being, and yet gives face to the truth of it: jubilant and pure hearted, while unjust and ego-driven, in the same moment. I rationalize rules (much unconsciously) to get my way, and compromise ways that create a new rule.

Sometimes it frightens me to see such elementary pockets of my heart. And sometimes it refreshes me, permitting my paradoxes, and my continual needs for saving and conversion. (And for the record, I returned the lost mat to its bin. And sincerely hope the real owner finds it.)