Laughter...grace

It suddenly struck me why a good laugh is so important to me. I had suspected the reasons for sure but this is another level of knowing.

Laughing - a good bout of laughter - lets me hope. It clears out the dank mushroom clouds of ennui, listlessness and restiveness. It strikes out at the oppressive claws of fear. It clears out, for some glorious moments, the claustrophobic bouts of despair, and infuses me with an absolute laughing and buoyant love. It revives flailing hope. Laughter revives my spirit. It nourishes my soul. It's a feeling of grace. A short and sudden laugh because of an old or young friend and when least expected - is something that cleanses my soul. Those seconds - and those crucial seconds - strip off the veil and I can live in those moments with nothing else mattering. The meaning is all there - contained in that lived moment. Music, it is.

How do some people do this? By a word, a gesture, a couple of statements, a look, a glance, a story, a seemingly solemn comment...by their presence? I don't know but I am utterly grateful that there are in this world those who can make me laugh even when I experience despair. To make another laugh by something said - an anecdote, a funny narration, a deft turn-of-phrase, a witticism, a whimsical comment - is an incomparable gift.

...Or to make another feel happy for some glorious moments by one's sheer being. To make one feel that all the worries and the nigglers and the fears - for now - are unreal and don't matter. To make one feel that what matters is that inexplicable yet divine feeling of bliss, a wholeness, which is the only anchor, and the only thing that matters and is real. It feels absurd that such a state as this that I describe can be - but I have felt it myself. I know it is real. The state exists. The universe makes sense in those moments, like no other. It is a pause in the cycle of time or maybe it is a moment of timelessness. It is like music. This laughter. This smile. Those moments. They touch the soul.

Laughter - the grace of giving and receiving laughter, joyous and pure - is, I'm beginning to think, like the 'quality of mercy' as Shakespeare had so fittingly put it in.....

I'd like nothing better than to be able to make some real being smile or laugh for real...and have them feel that same unfettered bliss that I have experienced. I'll say an 'Amen' to that.