DARE TO EXPERIENCE LAUGHTER IN YOUR LIFE?
by Bruce Tregonning
Did you know that we have been given a gift: the gift of laughter? It’s not something we earn, work for, or deserve, it’s a gift from God. You know, too, that laughter is not something we thought up. It wasn’t our idea. God gave it to us as He foreknew, we were going to need it to get thru life: the struggles, all that stuff that troubles us. It sets us up on a road to restored sanity and healing.
Laughing a lot puts such a positive spin on things, circumstances, and the challenges of stress. It provides a wonderful distraction from potential woes and negative feelings. Laughter can transport us out of our everyday conversations and give us some respite from our routines and those serious times of rhetoric. It can remind us of the long and positive way of thinking we have as humans and deliver us back to the present: refreshed and better able to face another moment. We need to provide moments and occasions in our day-to-day mundane life: a laugh to crack the tension to entertain us out of boredom (ennui) and tedium. Oh, those earth shaking, “Splitting-the-sides” humour that we can engage in. I personally crack up while seeing Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton silent movies, Ronnie Barker/ Corbett, Mr. Bean and other comedians going thru hilarious scenes.
They say laughter really is the best medicine. It is its ability to erase stress and change negative moods to positive ones by putting our problems into a bigger, happier perspective. The fact is, even if you sometimes feel as if you are hanging off the side of a cliff, life is too short for anything else, Amen! To quote: “A man was driving along a cliff-top road when he lost control of his car. Just as the vehicle plunged over the edge, he leapt out and grabbed hold of a branch sticking out of the sheer rock wall. Looking up to the top of the cliff, then looking down to the rocky shore far below, he realised he was trapped. Desperate, he turned to the sky and called out:
“Is there anyone up there?”
“This is God,” came a booming voice, “What do you want?”
“Please save me!” cried out the man.
“Do you have faith in me?” asked God.
“Yes, I do!”
“Well, let go of the branch. I will catch you as you fall and then lift you to the top of the cliff.” The man looked down then looked up. He turned to the sky again and yelled:
“Is there anyone else up there?”
It was Bishop Desmond Tutu who told this joke. We first see the word laughter in the Bible in the story of Abraham and Sarah. God promised this elderly couple a child. When Sarah finally gave birth at ninety, Abraham who was a hundred, named their son Isaac, which means “laughter”. It amazed Sarah that she exclaimed how “everyone who hears about this will laugh with me”. It was a miracle set in laughter. Thank God for the gift of laughter.
