Mourning

 The second of the Beatitudes promises happiness to those who mourn. In typical fashion, the Galilean doesn’t specify the cause of the mourning. Is it for loved ones lost to death or separation? Is it for a family beset by the bad fortunes of the times? Is it for a nation beset by seemingly insolvable calamities? Is it for a dying world?

 These days it might be for the loss of a fortune, an election, a bet, a race, or a game of sport. He just doesn’t say. What he does say is that we should be happy because we shall be comforted. Perhaps the reason he wasn’t more specific is because mourning is universal. Each of us, or at least the overwhelming majority of us, mourn, and we can discuss it.

 Yes, there are some who apparently do not mourn, primarily because they lack the ability to face reality or perhaps they were born lacking the ability of introspection, and suffer blindness of the conscience.

 And there might be some who have reached the highest level of Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs,” a state of being he called “self-actualization.” This refers to having reached the highest level of human potential. Do they mourn? Maybe they mourn the most of all, for they, like the Galilean, know the struggle toward perfection. After all, his devout followers believe in his perfection. Even so, the scriptures sometimes reveal a tortured, mourning soul.

 This is a tough passage, for Americans have so many reasons to mourn at present. In ancient terminology, we observe that the righteous perish while the wicked goeth free. It appears to us that tribulations will never cease. Should we feel blessed?

 The devout followers of the Galilean should rest happy in the knowledge that they will be comforted. The blind composer of Christian hymns Fanny Crosby reportedly said, “Blind Christians are the most blessed, because the first face they will ever see is our Lord Jesus.”

 Others may take a non-spiritual comfort from Algernon Charles Swinburne, sometimes called “the poet-laureate of the atheists,” who told wrote that “… even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.”

 Then, some among us may choose to follow the Bard of Avon’s words and, “ … take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.”

 The Galilean seems to have left it up to us. Perhaps we’ll handle it better than Hamlet did.