On a wall in our kitchen and dining room area hangs a painted board that says, “Live Simply, Laugh Often, Love Deeply.”
Unfortunately, a sign on the wall doesn’t assure that those who live under it will follow it’s counsel.
But this week, at least some of these words to live by seem especially appropriate with a visit from a sister-in-law from the East coast. When the two sisters get together some of life’s most embarrassing moments and royal mess-ups are told or retold once again as if they have morphed into such continuous laughter that we’re left gasping for air.
Ironically, neither sister has had an easy life. Yet, when you overhear them on the phone, or this week sitting together around the table, you sense that they’ve learned that the serious things in life leave a lot to laugh about– if we don’t take ourselves too seriously …
The laughs we’ve shared remind me of a stand up routine I heard years ago from the comedian Sinbad. If I remember right he was doing a college tour, telling stories on his family that resulted in continuous laughter from the audience that never stopped from one side-splitting line to the next.
And now… I find myself thinking, “Man, it feels so good to laugh.”
So, I wonder why the New Testament doesn’t describe our Teacher as laughing. We’re told that he groaned over Jerusalem, and that he cried after the death of his good friend Lazarus. But I don’t remember reading anything about his laughter.
What do you think? What would it be like to have Christ around the table for a week? Would we laugh– or just cry? Or is the question as mindless as a pre-recorded laugh track?
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