The Sanctity of Laughter

Can you remember the last time you laughed? I mean, when was the last time you burst out in a spontaneous, uncontrollable, body-shaking, pee-in-the-pants, and stomach aching laughter? Such emotional outbursts of joy have beneficial effects on the human body and soul, and for many of us, it has been way too long since we lost ourselves in uninhibited healthy hilarity.

Sure, we may cynically chuckle at a politician’s oral blunder, or we may smirk when someone we don’t care for is publicly disgraced, but dark humor has a tendency to drive us deeper into despair. Then, too, we may laugh half-heartedly while watching a comic sitcom on television or mildly grin when a co-worker tells a joke, but these often controlled expressions of humor don’t have the same effect as genuine belly laughter.

No doubt you’ve noticed that our world faces all kinds of potentially catastrophic problems. In fact, one agency of professional nonprofit scientists has moved the Doomsday Clock up closer to midnight, the time, according to these experts, when humanity annihilates itself. Such depressing news can have a negative effect on the most resilient of us.

It’s helpful to remember that throughout history doomsday predictions have been rampant. Just in the last century, during the so-called roaring 20s, there were forecasters who prophesied the end of history. Such figures as Winston Churchill, H.G. Wells, and others were not at all optimistic about the future of humanity. In more recent days, concerns about artificial intelligence, a changing climate, wars, and authoritarian governments have triggered feelings of anxiety in many of us. Sometimes we need to recalibrate, take a step back, breathe deeply, and remind ourselves that there is also much good in the world.

I’m certainly not suggesting that we stick our head in the sand and ignore what is happening. Someone has said that planet earth is our spacecraft and we are the crew. We have been placed in charge of caring for the ship that carries us through the universe, and our survival depends on whether we responsibly engage in the challenges that our fragile craft faces.

Yet, in spite of all the dangers that humanity faces, we must not forget to laugh. Laughter will help us keep our sanity in the midst of our troubled world, allow us to think more clearly, and may even be a sign of future hope (more about that later). Peter Berger, the renowned sociologist and author of A Rumor of Angels, writes that “Humor mocks the serious business of this world.” Humor implies that the obstacles and tragedies that we face on an almost daily basis can somehow be overcome. Without humor, the world would be a far darker place.

Years ago, when I was a young man with a young family, I underwent a series of surgeries to remove a cancerous growth. In one of the operations a 10-inch incision was made vertically down my abdomen, allowing the surgeon to take out around 75 potentially cancerous lymph nodes along my spinal region. When I woke up from the surgery and the anesthetic wore off, the pain was severe, to put it mildly. I remained in the hospital for a number of days, and when I finally was released to go home, I was as weak as a kitten. I had lost considerable weight and was wobbly on my feet.

After being home for a few days, I asked my wife if she would mow the grass. It was early spring, and the mower had not been used since the previous fall, but I thought she could manage it since we had a self-propelled lawn mower.

Unfortunately, the axle had to be repositioned for the first spring cutting. My wife hadn’t done that before, so I tried my best to walk her through how to change the position of the axle. She carefully slid the piece out of the mower, but, because it was rather slippery with oil, the axel slipped out of her hands onto the grass. As she picked up the axle, I could see that dead grass and dirt had accumulated on it.

I shouted something like, “DeDe, how could you be so incredibly careless?” (Full disclosure, the actual words may have been a bit harsher.)

My wife looked at me for a moment, then placed the axle back down on the grass, and said, “Why don’t you mow the damn lawn yourself?”

I stood before her, trying to keep my balance, not knowing exactly how to respond. Even had I come up with some witty reply, however, it would never have been heard. My wife, who had probably never used profanity in her life, jumped into the car and took off, leaving me in the garage staring down at the now grass-covered axle. I walked back inside the house wondering how in the world I could have been so insensitive, so stupid!

It wasn’t long before I heard her pull back into the driveway. When she came into the house, she had two large cherry limeades that she placed on the kitchen table. She and I looked at one another for a second, unsure of exactly what to say. Smiles slowly creased both our faces, and we burst out laughing.

The laughter hurt almost as much as the surgery, but I couldn’t stop laughing. We laughed and laughed. And then, when we finally stopped laughing and looked at one another, the laughter would start all over again. It was horrible! It was wonderful!

For several months, we both had been preoccupied with my diagnosis, hoping for the best but aware that my wife might be left alone with two small children. Finally, the flood-gates had opened and released all the pent-up tension and emotion that had been building for weeks.

As painful/joyful as it was for me to laugh, it would have been far more damaging to my health had I not been able to laugh. The moments of laughter suspended for a time the seriousness of what we both had gone through and gave us a breather from the weeks of trauma. On our journey to heal, laughter smoothed the way, both physically and emotionally.

But laughter, according to Berger, may also prefigure a spiritual dimension. Implicit to laughter is the faith that, in the midst of this world, there are hints of something beyond, a reality or dimension where joy, happiness, and contentment no longer compete with the sorrows of everyday life. Laughter, in the words of Berger, “signals transcendence” by anticipating a different kind of world, a world without pain or death.  When we laugh, when laughter is robust, genuine, and without reserve, time stands still, as though a little slice of heaven has drifted down to us. It is as if nothing else matters but that instant in time. Berger suggests that laughter pushes aside the anxieties of life and allows us to experience, dare I say it, a moment of heaven.

Berger, the sociologist, theorizes that there are certain common experiences or phenomena, deeply embedded within us, such as order, play, hope, and humor that point to something other than this world. These signals of transcendence, as he calls them, are subtle, to be sure, but when experienced as an act of faith, these signs can offer us a glimpse of that which lies beyond our natural world.

Obviously, these signals can be interpreted differently by skeptics and unbelievers, but Berger believes these human qualities signal an internal anticipation of the life to come. What makes these phenomena unique is that they are available to all people, everywhere, regardless of religious inclinations. While Scripture may reveal God to us, there are also subtle clues from experience by which anyone can intuit that something more exists than the natural world. Certainly, laughter is one of them.

Is it possible we laugh because we know, way down deep inside, that our present sufferings will one day give way to eternal joy!