All You Can do is Laugh

Every once in a while something happens to me that makes me cringe. I want to be embarrassed or angry, but it quickly occurs to me that the best response is just to laugh. This morning I pushed myself in exercising so much that after I stopped, I felt like I was having some sort of heart attack. It was scary for a while, but then it occured to me that I'd probably pulled a muscle. Or maybe it was my zyphoid-process.

Thinking about this took me back to years ago, when a similar situation occured. I was teaching and I felt chest pains. Horrible ones. I sent for a substitute and went to see the principal. I have to tell you that of all the principals I worked for, he was the...less qualified... in my opinion. He got things wrong. A lot.

I told him of my pain and he gave me the okay to go see my doctor. The doctor examined me and asked me what I'd been doing the night before.

"I went out dancing."

He explained to me that my heart was fine. He suspected that due to dancing while slouching, a piece of cartilage at the end of my sternum called the zyphoid-process was bent back. All I needed to do was to make sure I sat or stood straight all day and the pain would go away.

I called my principal on my way home.

"The doctor explained to me that in my dancing last night I bent back a piece of cartilage called the zyphoid process that is located at the end of my sternum. Just need to rest and stay straight. I'll be back tomorrow."

At school, one of my teacher friends approached the principal and asked him if I was okay.

He replied, "Well....ahhhhh.....uhhhhh...she'll be okay." At this point he pointed to his sternum. "She just...welll...ahhhh...has a problem with her scrotum."

My friend held back the laughter and told me of the "glich" in his vocabulary later. Some close teacher friends kidded me often that year saying, "Hey Robbie, how's your scrotum problem?"

I cringed at first. But then I learned to laugh. It's still funny to me today. I went to my Moms In Touch mother/child book club today at a swimming pool. I was still in pain and my friends wanted to know what was up. I told them and of course, told the story. They laughed as I did.

By the way, I'm no longer in pain. My scrotum is fine. :0)

Have you Laughed Today?

“A joyful heart is good medicine…” Proverbs 17:22

For one hour every Sunday night, the most blessed of sounds bathes me and cleans out the junk from the week. This is when Noah laughs and laughs. He is a joyful little kid who doesn’t hold back giggles any day or hour of the week, but on Sunday night the guffaws and chuckles and chortles and mirth gush from him like a waterfall cascading on thirsty rocks below.

This is when “America’s Funniest Videos” is aired on ABC.

The show is so simple in its format. For sixty minutes, we watch people bumble. Each embarrassing pratfall or trip is fodder for fun. It is human nature to find hilarity within someone slipping on a sidewalk, especially if they don’t hurt themselves. Maybe our laughter comes from relief that it wasn’t us or maybe it comes from the commonality of foolishness that we all experience. We have all fallen…some of us still can’t get up.

Noah may love this show so much because he is a natural “faller.” It’s not that he is clumsy; he just loves to fall down. My friend Stacey, borrowing from Star Wars, coined a phrase that we often say about our son – “Gravity is strong in this one.”

With each tumbling, Noah looks to see if we laughed and often punctuates his pratfall with his own giggles.

Last Sunday Pastor John talked about stress in our lives. He preached that laughter can be part of the cure. I thought about what he said and it occurred to me that I live in a pharmacy with stocked shelves. My husband John makes me laugh like no one else on the planet, especially as we watch TV. He comments, as do I, on everything we watch and we find each other incredibly witty. And then of course, there is the boy, who does things that just tickle me.

I am a loud laugher but I have no inhibitions about it anymore. I am who I am and God happened to give me a loud laugh. I also use laughter as a defense mechanism. Often I say inappropriate things at inappropriate times that really crack me up. Wisdom often comes in and helps me edit, but not always.

Have you laughed today? If you don’t have someone who makes you laugh, find your own “America’s Funniest Videos” and start your own convention of conviviality. Yep, I worked a little too hard to come up with that phrase. Maybe head on over to the library and get a humorous book. Dave Barry always cracks me up. Right now, I am reading Erma Bombeck’s “Motherhood is the 2nd Oldest Profession” and I laugh aloud every few pages.

Laugh. Give yourself a hearty dose of medicine for your heart. After you laugh, look around at your world with your heart, not your eyes. You'll understand what the poet Lord Byron meant:

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.
Lord George Gordon Byron