Among my early memories, few cause me to smile more than reflecting on the sillier things I did. By today’s standards, I’m what you might call anal retentive. I remember being a whole lot sillier than I am today. It’s become obvious to me that the older I get the more I take myself and life’s situations too seriously. I often need to be reminded, “to lighten up…to not take myself so seriously”.
I’m 67 years old and embarrassed to admit, I don’t know when I began to lose my propensity for silliness. Marilyn probably has more 
insight into this than I do. For the first 25 to 30 years, I seem to recall laughing often with little concern as to what those around me thought. Like Axel on the TV sitcom The Middle, I seemed to naturally find the party portion of each program.
The majority of my high school and college memories find me surrounded by other light hearted people: quick to laugh, thriving on silliness. It wasn’t until I “grew up”, I guess, that I began to censor the amount of silliness I allowed myself to pursue. I remember laughing until soda came out my nose—thigh slapping episodes of uncontrollable hilarity. I recall wiping away tears with the back of my hands as, together with my silly friends, we moved from one story to the next. I’m not talking about off-color or destructive behavior but genuine light-hearted pursuits of a good laugh.
Although only self-diagnosed as having attention deficient disorder, I could claim I simply didn’t recognize my compunction for silliness in the early days of my youth. It wasn’t until I tipped over into adulthood that I realized the importance of maintaining an overall sense of self decorum.
But oh the memories of being silly! Listen to this one…I remember riding in a car with my friends singing Pretty Woman at the top of our lungs thinking nothing of pulling up alongside another car at a traffic light, windows down and warbling unashamedly to the dismayed people in the car beside us. This is something I would never do today you’ll be glad to know.
All that said, I’m not complaining. I get it. I was young and immature then. But gosh, sometimes I really miss being silly! I find this age of politically imposed correctness stifling at times. I miss my silly, immature friends. I miss my own immaturity.
Adulthood has its own rewards though. We discover the difference between silly and humorous, between comfortable and awkward, between constructive and destructive. We learn to “play well with others”—something I often got S minuses for in grade school. Maturity is a necessary process, although it tends to eliminate any useful category for silliness…and I admit, I sure do miss it.
But perhaps it isn’t the silliness I miss as much as silly people. Fortunately I’ve maintained a few friendships from my “growing up” days…people I learned to love because they were silly but whom now I love because we once shared silliness. True friends are recognizable by one particular characteristic; Whenever we come together again, whether after years or miles of separation (or both), we pick up where our last conversation left off. It’s like we’ve done the homework together. We’ve laughed and cried together. We’ve raised families and still, when we come together, we seem to pick up where we left off. Nothing silly about that.
I’m grateful for the silly people in my life. People who didn’t take me as seriously as I took myself and in so doing freed me to laugh ‘til I cried…and who now free me to cry til I laugh.
As a spiritual teacher, I often sense the weight others bear and as I compare that to the cross Jesus bore, I realize life is more often serious than silly. But I still believe we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. Life yes…ourselves, no. There’s something spiritual about abandoning ourselves to a higher power with the faith-induced assurance that God is in control and, regardless of how much we try, we will never be.
As I continue to “mature” and my silliness wanes, I find joy, even laughter, in the things that matter most. This reminds me of a verse in The Psalms…
“When the righteous see God in action they’ll laugh, they’ll sing, they’ll laugh and sing for joy.” Psalm 68:3
Here’s hoping you and your silly friends, as well as me, find our joy in the righteous things of God. RG
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.