Another new year. So how are you feeling? Yay or nay? Another new year and I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Although, as Dolly Parton says so eloquently in the movie “Steel Magnolias” after Shelby’s funeral, “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” I think that sums up my strategy this past year. Albeit, with less laughter than I would like. Frankly, I’m happy to see 2023 end… well maybe… I think so… I don’t know. Could I be any less decisive? Perhaps.

Suffice it to say, for me and many people, it has been a long, tough year. OOOOOHHH, LET ME COUNT THE WAYS! Don’t worry, I won’t, it’s not necessary to recap. If your year has been as though Sisyphus took up residence in your home, office and car for the last year, then I probably don’t need to remind you of any details, I assume you’re good to go. But there have been some smiles. I just think too few them.

However, it’s not about NOT having challenges, pain, suffering, grief or upset in life – although we know that less of these brings us more physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being. It’s about spending a little MORE time taking everything just a little LESS seriously, at least a little bit of the time. We don’t ignore the pain, we stay with it, and ponder in the dark as well – maybe pitch a tent for a bit but not build a permanent home.

Yes, things in life are serious, I’m not suggesting ignoring the work that we are each called to do to in our world. Work to raise our own consciousness and accountability around racial justice, LGBTQ, healing mother earth, poverty, violence, gun control and, and, and… Work that requires us to move into some of the most uncomfortable places inside ourselves, and into some of the deepest, darkest places of our culture and humanity that we have ever known.

At times though, I have to admit, maybe we are a little too serious. But rest easy, I’m not going to give any instructions or helpful tips for healing our woundedness – not in this blog anyway. Well, not really. I do have one spiritual practice to offer – one New Year’s Revolution for you – BE SILLY.

Even Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great poet, philosopher, scholar and leader of the 19th-century Transcendentalist Movement told us to be silly. Too much time is spent being busy. We need to be silly. I want to have a smile so big spread across my face I can see the tops of my cheeks bumping up against my glasses.

Being silly and playing is a spiritual practice specifically designed for us lowly humans to disengage the brain, to abandon what we know and just roll around in the grass, metaphorically. Unless you are actually practicing being silly, then I mean it literally. The word silly has had several meanings over the centuries. Its origins have included: happy, blessed, kind-hearted and even guileless. But I think my favorite is “lacking in reason.” I don’t know about you, but I could use a few more moments of unhinging the brain.

Seeing beyond the hard parts of life is part of the spiritual practice of being silly. It’s like reading the Sunday comics and finding yourself. Growing up, my mother would ask us on Sunday afternoons where we found ourselves in the comics that day. Was it in Beetle Bailey, the Peanuts, Family Circle, Sally Forth, Garfield, or maybe the Wizard of Id? By doing this, the ordinary of my world is depicted as the extraordinary, the banal becomes comical, and the secular becomes sacred.

St. Francis, Zen masters, Taoist sages, Hasidic storytellers, Hopi clowns and performance artists are all prophets who have encouraged me to play and be silly because honestly what I know isn’t worth knowing, and what’s worth knowing can’t be known through the usual ways. In case you are having a silliness drought, let me offer you some ways to get you started. You can DOWNLOAD a list of 52 acts of silliness, one for each week of the new year. Most I have tested, but you need to test them out yourself to get the maximum silliness quotient and comprehension.

First, a few things to keep in mind:

  • This is a partial list. Add your own silliness in the comments section below.
  • If you try any of these and you’re feeling stupid, embarrassed or worried about what others think, you’re doing it right. Keep going, it will pass.
  • Acts of silliness are not always engaged in alone. Occasional group silliness is mandatory for health.
  • Silliness equals less adult agenda, more kid agenda.
  • The weight of the world does not get lifted off your shoulders, that would imply that at some point you could put it back. It’s the feeling there is no world – just you and your silliness cohort.
  • The more you practice, the more you realize there is power in not caring what others think of your silliness. See #2. Keep going, feel the power.
  • SPOILER ALERT: Each act of silliness has the potential to forever change your life, and ergo the world.

Remember, according to Ludwig Wittgenstein, another brilliant philosopher, someone much more enlightened than me, “If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would get done.” Being silly is the joyful expression of my being. It is at the heart of my creativity, my most carefree and compassionate moments of devotion. It helps me live with absurdity, paradox, sadness, awe and mystery.

Silliness uplifts humanity and keeps my search for meaning down to earth, rolling around in the grass, imitating Mr. Napkin Head from “The Holiday,” making mud pies, and seeing how many marshmallows I can fit in my mouth. And don’t forget to DOWNLOAD a list of 52 acts of silliness, one for each week.

Oh, and Happy New Year you goofballs.