The joy of being grumpy

For those few of you who have never heard of Grumpy Cat, firstly, kudos because you clearly don’t spend too much time online; and secondly … you’ve got to get online!

Grumpy Cat is the very definition of cute, which according to urban mythology originally meant ‘ugly but adorable’.* Grumpies—the millions that have embraced the spirit of the Grumpster himself—celebrate the gorgeousness of being grumpy. The perfection of being imperfect. You won’t see Grumpies squeezing into lycra, chanting the mantra, ‘New Year, new you!’

No, it’s New Year, new … boo! It’s about accepting ourselves the way we are, where we are. It’s about celebrating our ‘ugly but adorable’ selves. That’s the joy of being grumpy.

Holidays are a wonderful time of rest when we allow space for family, feel the sun on our face, spend all day in jandals, and find ourselves feeling more optimistic about life.

But as soon as we’re dragged back to the world of work or study, with the same stresses and the old insecurities, we can find ourselves losing that optimism. We further clutter this time of year with promises to ourselves that we’ll have better habits, get up earlier, exercise harder, save more, earn more … be more.

Rarely do we promise that we’ll work on liking ourselves more, or that we’ll accept our job as it is. We very rarely promise ourselves that we’ll do less, or even allow ourselves to be less.

In short, we easily lose the holiday spirit of rest, and with it, the enjoyment of life.

I was recently intrigued to read about a ‘theology of sleep’ that, put simply, argues God has things to teach us about our sleep. ‘Insomnia is now the most widespread disability in Western countries and is seriously affecting people’s physical, emotional, mental and spiritual capacities,’ says Robert Banks, author of Redeeming the Routines. ‘We need to identify not only its personal and social causes, but its spiritual roots as well.’

‘In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety,’ says Psalm 4:8. God invites us to bring him into that space between wakefulness and sleep, receiving God’s calm and safety. This is a time when we may feel fears most deeply, or receive a hint of God’s calling for us. Rest is God’s daily gift for our lives.

Banks issues a challenge for us to redeem those daily routines we think of as so mundane that we don’t even consider bringing them to God: our commute to work, shopping, debt, the way we dress, hobbies, and even waiting in queues. The beauty of God is that he can bring a sense of peace to those moments between moments.

The joy of being grumpy is allowing God’s accepting presence among the fabric of our ‘ugly but adorable’ lives. And that will always make us smile.

*there’s no actual evidence of this, but moving right along.

By Ingrid Barratt