DE Ponderings

Thinking about the state of affairs in our nation and in the world can bring me to tears. My emotions are stirred to sadness as I listen to bifurcated rhetoric, as I watch news stories that report about violence enacted upon others, as I witness the devastation of natural disasters and the lives that are left in turmoil. Sometimes I find the lump in my throat and the increased work of tear ducts from reading an emotionally-stirring story, as well. A story that comes to mind is one I recently read in The Christian Century. The author describes a teacher he remembered from his childhood who was stern, a disciplinarian, seemingly emotionally detached from her students. One day the school’s administrator entered the classroom, whispered something to the teacher, and left. The teacher then approached one of the girls in the class whose father was seriously ill. The student, with the teacher’s hand on her shoulder, looked at the back of the person in front of her in a manner of knowing what the teacher’s touch meant. As the student stood, the storyteller states that he heard a sob of which he had not heard before nor since. There in the aisle stood the student embracing the sobbing teacher.

As easily as I can be moved to tears, I also have the capacity to laugh heartily. I was helping Tammy with a small task recently when she made a quick movement that resulted in an unexpected outcome. The surprised look on her face was priceless...AND hilarious. We both laughed until our sides hurt.

Laughter is said to be good medicine. The release of chemicals in our body from laughing has its benefits. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say laughter is an antidote to tears of sadness, I would conclude from an experiential perspective that laughter adds balance to life.

I find it easy to get bogged down in the turmoil, difficulties, and sad stories which are experienced and/or witnessed. To laugh in the midst of this milieu of distress seems almost profane. However, a message within the Sermon on the Mount helps me to accept the balance laughter brings. Jesus offers in the sermon this encouragement: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

Could it be that laughter is a sign of dismissing worry? Through laughter we can be assured of God’s providence. Laughter doesn’t diminish the stark realities of stress and distress, but it does indicate that there is a power greater than our own at work to walk with all of us at all times. We trust in God to provide for our needs as we journey forward together in every emotional state. Laughter witnesses to that trust.

I will still cry. But I will not be afraid to laugh.