Office of Communications > Weekly Reflection >March 7, 2008

He smiled and said hello. Before I knew it we had moved from the weather outside to how the Bubonic plague saved Europeans from AIDS. It wasn’t that he was smart, which he was, or that we agreed, which we didn’t, but that smile kept me engaged, made me feel welcome, and caused me to wonder what he saw that I didn’t.

We all know people who will take a smile to the grave, not because of some deft mortician but because they always wear this badge of gratitude or joy. We may think them naïve or successfully self-deceived, but we envy that look, or at least the comfort it portrays. We want to be happy enough to smile as well.

I think of the “smilers” in my life, an eclectic mix of Buddhas and Mona Lisas. There’s a brilliant professor whose face breaks open when he talks about the little clues to God. There is a retired deliveryman who lost a daughter and a wife but still takes a patient delight in everyone he meets. A woman whose bubbling youth never quieted, only matured into effervescent motherhood.

They’re all contagious, but we can’t maintain the spirit of their smile. We need help. Last year we wrote 118 million prescriptions for antidepressants. While there are those in clinical need, many more simply want to chemically lighten the load and brighten the beam. Others bet a new house or car will do the trick. But Paxil pills or a scrip of wealth won’t make us happy, just not depressed or poor.

So maybe our “smilers” do know something we don’t, at least about the treasure hunt for meaning. Maybe that smile is not a reflection of the gold they found in their lives, but the miner,s light by which they spotted the vein. Maybe it is expectation more than fulfillment, a hope more than reward. It might just be something we owe ourselves, and others as well. As a grinning pope once said: “Every person has a right to a smile.”