The Last Laugh

Skylar, my oldest grandchild at 5½ now, has always had a way with words. Children like her keep the rest of us entertained with their interesting comments, and one of Skylar’s two year old remarks has stuck with me. She and her family were visiting from Florida, and a dozen of us were seated around my dining table chatting. Skylar’s loud, animated jabbering was interfering, and finally her mother said, “Skylar! You can’t be so loud at the dinner table. Please talk softer.”

Laughing Skylar

Always thinking and not particularly interested in obeying at that moment, she looked directly at Linnea and said, in a quiet voice, “But Mommy, it’s good to laugh.” And quick as a wink she threw back her head, opened her mouth wide, and let out a rip-roaring, ear-splitting, drawn-out mega-laugh. She knew her mother wouldn’t say, “No laughing allowed!”

Although Skylar had the wrong approach, she did have the right idea. Scientists tell us we all benefit from a good laugh, and most of us don’t do enough of it. We’ve heard of Hollywood’s artificial “laugh tracks” and know the whole idea is to get us laughing more, enjoying the benefits of giggles and guffaws and the shows that cause them. Group laughter is a way of sharing in a happy experience.

Producers and directors recognize the power of a good laugh and have learned how to expertly blend natural and fake laughter. They’ve studied how wrongly placed laughs can ruin a story line, and how laughter that’s too loud or too long can offend listeners. Who knew there was such a thing as “wrong laughter?” But harnessing correct laughter translates to dollars and cents in the world of show business.

Sometimes I think about the things we laugh at in our spiritual lives and wonder if our behavior is always appropriate. Are we “laughing wrongly” as Skylar did that day at the table?

Maybe we can learn something from her laugh-wrapped disobedience. I have a hunch most of us do something similar on occasion. Haven’t we listened to our heavenly Parent’s instructions (or reprimands) with a hint of wrong laughter deep inside us? He tells us something important, and our inner laugh track quietly says, “Yeah, right. Ha ha.”

He says:

  • Put someone else’s needs atop your own. (We say, “Laughable.”)
  • Make decisions now, based on life after death. (“Oh sure.”)
  • Love your enemies. (“Ridiculous.”)
  • Believe that the devil is out to destroy you. (“Absurd.”)
  • View suffering as an effective teacher. (“Preposterous.”)
  • Trust your life to an unseen God. (“Outlandish.”)

How many times do we outwardly agree with him while inwardly thinking, “He can’t mean that!” But he hears our wrong-laugh track and is not joining in. What he wants from us instead is “correct laughter,” which is the deep satisfaction that bubbles up after cheerful, wholehearted obedience.

As for Skylar’s loud laughter at the table, she miscalculated her mother’s response, and during her time-out, she wasn’t laughing.

This is love: that we walk in obedience to [Christ’s] commands. (2 John 1:6)

Count the Cost

Although I don’t usually scrutinize my grocery receipts, this weekend after arriving home with my bags I did, because the total seemed so low. That’s when I realized the check-out girl hadn’t charged me for a small rose plant I’d bought as a Mother’s Day gift.

Sweetheart roses

Since I was on a tight schedule and the store was a 30 minute round trip from home, I didn’t have time to go back. And if I had, two things might have happened, making me wish I hadn’t. (1) The cashier might have gotten in trouble, and (2) the store manager might have said, “Don’t worry about it.”

So I did nothing.

The next day I explained it all to Mary, complaining about the inconvenience of having to go back to the store since I knew the right thing to do was pay what I owed. “You know,” she said, “it’s funny how that seems inconvenient now, but when I had kids living at home, I used to literally pray for opportunities just like that one. It was the perfect chance to teach something important without saying a word.”

She was right. Children watch us closely, “catching” the values we live out in front of them. Maybe, I thought, if I corrected the payment problem of the rose plant, someone I didn’t even know might “be watching.”

The day after my rose non-purchase, I had another list of errands, this one in the opposite direction. Last on my list was to head back to the rose store to settle up. When I finally got there, I walked over to the display of rose plants from which I’d “bought” the first one the day before. Pondering the best way to make things right, I decided to buy a second plant and let the checker scan it twice rather than go through the manager, causing trouble for the young girl who’d forgotten to charge me.

That girl wasn’t on duty, so I chose a young boy cashier and briefly explained that I wanted to pay for the plant I’d gotten for free the day before. “So,” I said, “why don’t you just scan this one twice,” I said, handing him the plant.

“Really?” he said, looking me in the eye. He picked up the plant, waved it over the scanner, then held it in the air, ready to do it again. Looking back at me he said, “You sure?”

“Yes,” I said,  “because if I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t sleep tonight, you know?”

“I suppose,” he said, swiping it a second time.

“And if I let myself get away with it this time, it would be easy to do it again some other time.”

“Maybe,” he said, slowly bagging the plant, not entirely convinced.

But as I turned to go, he said, “Hey… I appreciate what you just did.”

When I got in the car, I looked at the receipt. Amazingly, this one seemed low, too. Actually it was. Between yesterday and today, the roses had been marked down to half price, so I ended up with two…. for the price of one.

Sweetheart roses

Sweetheart roses“Better to be poor and honest than to be dishonest and a fool.” (Proverbs 19:1)

Studying for Finals

Fun with MomSunday is Mother’s Day, and I’ve been reflecting on my own mom. Having grown up surrounded by her love, her prayers, and her non-stop good times, the only thing I can do is translate my thoughts to prayers of gratitude.

Mom lived to be 92, and of course she became more sedentary as the years piled up. She never stopped playing games with her grand-kids, though, and loved every encounter with them. But there was something she loved even more than that: reading her Bible. “I’m studying for my finals, you know,” she’d say, a statement that reflected her strong belief she would be in the presence of Jesus “pretty soon.” She wanted to be as well prepared to meet him as she could, and burying herself in his Word seemed like the right approach.

Beach party

In 2004 (her last summer), she stayed a while with us at our cottage in Michigan. As a crowd of us would pack up for the beach, she’d settle into a chair by the window, her Bible in her lap and say, “Have fun!” In her opinion, though, she was having the greater fun, with Scripture.

That summer I watched her repeatedly open to the first page of the Bible, Genesis 1, where day after day she’d be on the same page. One day I asked about that. “Why don’t you turn the page?”

Her answer was interesting. “Have you ever thought there might have been eons of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2?” She couldn’t turn the page, because the first one offered so much to think about.

As she sat hour after hour studying Genesis 1, she bounced back and forth from reading to meditating to asking God questions, trying to absorb everything she could.

It was during that summer she said, “The answer to every problem is in the Bible, and that includes the cure for cancer.” Her favorite example of Scripture’s practical information was in Exodus 2:3’s description of the basket that baby Moses’ mother made for him. The Bible says she waterproofed it with “tar and pitch.” Mom said, “That was to let people know where to drill for oil.”

Mom absolutely loved her Bible and fully trusted the Spirit of God to have led the men who wrote it. She often asked us scriptural questions and readily admitted she didn’t have all the answers.

Ya don't say!

I’m quite sure Mom never had to take any heavenly final exam, but if she had, she would have done A-OK. As I think back on her unflagging diligence in studying Genesis 1 that summer, it’s satisfying to know that now, in the Lord’s presence, she has had her questions answered.

And she probably even knows which Bible verses hold the cure for cancer.

Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures?” (Mark 12:24)