Sorrowful Yet Always Rejoicing 5

I'm still kind of circling and trying to pinpoint what exactly I'm getting at in all of this. Meanwhile, I've lost some of you long ago. I promise this will be the last attempt to articulate myself on this subject for the foreseeable future.

I was reminded of an article passed on by a friend a while back that deals with some of these same ideas, more specifically on how people wired different ways interact in the same community. What I've been calling melancholics, he calls Winter Christians. What I've been calling happy-go-luckies, he calls Summer Christians. I like those terms. If you've been tracking this train of thought with me, you might be interested in what psychologist Richard Beck writes over here.

But I read my reaction to that article, in an email from more than two years ago, and my reaction was the same as today's: But why are we one or the other? Shouldn't Winter Christians experience summer? Shouldn't Summer Christians experience winter?

In Lamentations 3, Winter Christians are comfortable with half of the text and uncomfortable with the other. Summer Christians the opposite. But both halves are there, both are equally the words of God.

I want us to embrace all of Lamentations 3. I want Winter Christians to more readily accept expressions of hope. I want Summer Christians to more readily accept expressions of lament. And I want us to bear with and learn from each other, mourning with those who mourn and rejoicing with those who rejoice, no matter what our disposition, being sorrowful yet always rejoicing together.