Laughing into New Life (Excerpt)

March 1, 2013

01 Mar 2013

Podcast: Download (1.8MB)

Subscribe: More

Being in the tomb doesn’t mean there is an absence of life, but, rather, the dominance of death.

I see the tomb present in so many of our lives all the time. The longing to be partnered and have children as a still single 35 year old can consume us, suck all the air out of the room. And we are obsessed, all other lights are shut out, we are, in other words, “entombed.”

The phone call from our ex-spouse, or cranky co-worker or obsessive relative and their ability to hook us, hold us, keep us in the dark place, long after we’ve hung up the phone and we are entombed. The new college graduate ready to take on the world, yet applications for the same job mount into the hundreds, their future feels narrow and constrained, and they are entombed.

This entombing of ourselves happens so often, it’s like we forget we even do it. We let whatever the worry, concern or burden is eclipse the rest of life. We often let it define our days, who we are, and we get stuck, most often because we want the answers, we want control.

And when we feel so stuck, so eclipsed, when we are not letting in any light, I think the gift of laughter is honestly one of the few ways there are to roll away the stone.

Jean Houston, the great American author and spiritual leader said, “at the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.”