Reading Mother Teresa--Cheerfulness

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – 

not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – 

continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. . . . 

Philippians 2:12 

I don’t buy it totally. It strikes me as half-truth, which is, at times, even more deceptive than a lie. I understand what she says, I even have some sympathies with the idea, but finally I think she was wrong. Well, half wrong.

“Cheerfulness is a sign of a generous and mortified person who, forgetting all things, even herself, tries to please her God in all she does for souls” (33).

A mortified person is someone whose “old man [or woman] of sin” is dead as doornail. It has nothing to do with being absolutely “mortified” by what stupidity came out of your cousin Ezra’s mouth last Sunday. When your sin is, so to speak, behind you, she’s saying, cheerfulness becomes a habit.

That’s very sweet, but I’m not convinced.

“Cheerfulness is often a cloak which hides a life of sacrifice, continual union with God, fervor and generosity” (33). I don’t know that I believe that totally either, but I like it. Run into an ever-cheerful person, she says, and you’ll be with someone whose deep devotion to God is a constant.

I’m still listening, but she’s starting to sound tinny--“don’t worry, be happy.”

“A person who has this gift of cheerfulness very often reaches a great height of perfection” (33).

Warning lights are still going off. Even the apostle Paul would draw an eyebrow here, so I am not alone, nor am I too much a Calvinist to go there. In my book, “the perfect is [often] the enemy of the good.”

But I’m still listening. After all, this is Mother Teresa.

“For God loves a cheerful giver and He takes close to His heart the religious He loves” (33).

She’s far more sure about such things than I am, but okay--then how do you reconcile that idea with the treasures that darkness and sheer doubt have given us? Much of our music arises from thwarted human aspiration, from the dead opposite of Disney-level cheerfulness. America’s finest gift to the arts is the blues, doleful music drawn from the sad lives of African-American folk musicians. The blues are beautiful, even inspiring, but Lord knows they’re not cheerful. And neither are some psalms, come to think of it.

And then this: “When I see someone sad, I always think, she is refusing something to Jesus” (33).

I’ve known too much depression to buy that one. It’s something you might whisper in your own ear, but telling someone else that his or her sorrow comes from lack of faith can be deadly when persistent darkness isn’t just inflamed moodiness. Believe me. “Your problem, kid, is you’re just not right with God.” While that idea may not be all wrong, as therapy it can kill.

Mother Teresa may well have believed what she says about cheerfulness. She may have used that sentiment to scold herself – that’s understandable. But if her own confessions are true, if her diaries and letters reveal someone who fought off the darkness – and such is the record! – then she could not have really believed it herself. She wasn’t always cheerful because she wasn’t always something beautiful for Jesus. Even Mother Teresa wasn’t perfect, wasn’t ever cheerful. And she knew it. And she tells us as much.

“Therefore, my dear friends,” says the letter to the Philippians, “as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

“With fear and trembling.” Those are tough words.

She’s not the gospel on cheerfulness, but she’s not totally wrong either.

It’s good to know I’m not alone.