L = LAUGHTER
Anne Lamott says, “laughter is carbonated holiness.” We need to lighten up in our congregations literally and metaphorically. Amusing stuff often occurs in our worship services and it’s OK to laugh out loud…well…because it’s funny. During one Christmas Eve Little Lesson (it’s wise to really think those through), a boy unassumingly left the tight circle of children gathered around me, went rogue, walked up the chancel steps to reach the side of the pulpit which he held onto as he left his feet and swung back and forth using some ecclesiastical exercise equipment and yelled, “This is fun!” and encouraged his twin brother to do the same on the lectern side. It was funny and there was no going back to the lesson of the candy cane.
I am blessed to be of a family that knows how to laugh and understands the healing gift of laughter. In my seventeenth year on November 29 our father died. Understandably, there was a sadness that holiday season. On Christmas morning, we were in a minor rhythm. After a subdued gift opening done in the emptiness of shared grief, my oldest brother announced that everyone was to “wear” everything they received for Christmas. The invitation was received, and sweaters and flannels were layered, underwear became “tighty-whitey tossel caps, ceramic angels rested in cleavage, fishing lures and shotgun shells were displayed Poncho Villa style, record albums perched atop heads, socks were on feet and tucked into back pockets, and a softball glove caught a book, a t-shirt and a bag of pistachio nuts.
