Happy Mourning?

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.  Matthew 5:4

Thank you for the kind words of comfort yesterday. Today I was met with the contradiction of feeling blessed by mourning. Years ago a preacher said that we could substitute blessed with the word happy in the Beatitudes. This would change it to 'Happy are those who mourn...' which is just more contradiction than I can feel even on a good day. No doubt that preacher long ago thought himself quite clever. While emotions are complex, I think most of us could tell the difference between a happy person and a person in mourning. The blessing would seem to come from the comforting, and not from a clever word switcheroo. One mourning person can bring many together to comfort him. That's a blessing. While it is nice to be around a happy person, one cannot simply point a magic word wand at him and say, "Make it so!" 

Therefore, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted!

Bucky