I just haven't made up my mind about laughing.

We have little sayings about laughing, like "A day without laughter is a day wasted" or "Laugh it off" or "Laughter is the best medicine" (which is arguably a quote from Proverbs 17:22). Laughter reaches right to the soul.

I suppose it is who does the laughing, and why. For instance, when I passed a kidney stone a while back the pain was ridiculous. I could not stand, I could not sit, I could not lie down. As I went from position to position, over and over, hopelessly trying to find some way I could just hold still and relax (hoping the pain would subside) I started to roar with laughter. My wife also laughed. Now, I was laughing in pure amusement, to me it was funny that a little tiny chunk of calcium could disable a 300 pound gorilla person, but there it was. My wife was laughing in fear and nervousness for me (at least I'd like to think so!)

On the other hand, not long ago I had something bad happen and when someone asked me how I was doing, I told them. They laughed in my face. Now before you think "ah ha the mocking laugh" (which I admit some do) this was more of a "oh no I don't know what to say so I'll laugh." You know, like when something bad happens and someone laughs because they are full of emotion , like laughing at a funeral, the outburst kind. It is understandable but cuts just the same.

Some folks say I laugh too much. (I laugh at that <smile!>) I note many have a hard time figuring me out, and have told me so once they got to know me better. I am actually very serious most of the time. I could say life is too short to go around glum and worried all the time, but really I don't dwell on that. It is more fun to be happy, besides God made us and gave us everything we need, including a bright future. We sing about being happy and supposedly look forward with joy at serving God. If it is such a joyful thing, this life of service and opportunity we have, why not be happy about it, instead of acting like a bunch of Eeyores?

Yet some brethren can't take it. Maybe they conclude that someone who laughs is laughing at them - really - and they take offense. I can honestly say I can't decide myself. When you laugh a lot, and few do more than me, you get a bulls eye put on you. Anyone in a bad mood who sees you happy resents it. You become the target of a lot of grief. Maybe they take Luke 6:21 as guidance on life and I am in the 6:25 camp! Maybe we both ought to look closer at that.

God laughs at our futile attempts to be wiser than him, or more powerful. Sarah famously laughed, and it seems like the young men that made fun of Elisha laughed, too. Of course the apostles got laughed at - mocked - on the day of Pentecost supposedly being drunk.

So I haven't made up my mind about laughing. Some laugh with smugness, others with friendliness and joyfulness. Nothing can lift up more or bite as deeply into our souls. Have you laughed today? Was it good medicine, or a poison pill?

Randy