SCREAMING IN THE TEMPLE

The other evening, my wife, Julie, and I were eating dinner on the second story balcony of our local grocery’s café.  Below that there’s an outdoor patio and beyond that a kids’ playground.  We couldn’t see what was going on down there, but Julie drew my attention to the super-loud screams of excitement coming from the children in the playground.

 She said, “What would it be like if we heard a whole bunch of adults screaming like that?” We immediately noted how we would assume they were angry. And we remarked how rarely adults scream - unless at a sports event or a demonstration.  And we thought it might be helpful if we would all scream more often, particularly with joy, in private or in public! Of course singing at the top of one’s lungs is similar and that does take place more or less in certain religious contexts and certain concerts.

Though we all want, in many ways, nothing more than joy in our lives, it is amazing that we don’t do more to be irresistibly drawn to joy and its expression.  As Kim Basinger said in a different context in “My Step-Mother is an Alien”, “Why don’t you do it all the time?”  What other momentum do we need to scream with joy or even with, as needed, other emotions – fear, grief, anger – but with joy most of all.

Years ago I was intrigued with Arthur Janov’s primal scream therapy with its emphasis on purging early traumas through screaming. However, there is also this perhaps even healthier perspective - to scream, to sing, and perchance to dance with joy and other deep feelings far more often.   

What else should we be doing with these wild and precious lives? This incredible earth is such a gift, our lives upon it so miraculous – the whole planet can be considered rightly an enormous natural temple and testament to life. Screaming, especially with joy, in this temple, on this planetary playground, makes perfect sense!