“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine...”
Proverbs 17:22
I’ll admit it; joy is challenging for me.
I say this, not to heap more doom and gloom, sorrow and despair, and lookie now, here come the boils and open sores.
I say this not as an act of faithlessness, although yes, it has doubt all over it.
Joy is not always the easiest thing to instantaneously obtain.
That’s part of the faith experience, with even, yes, doubts included in that.
“A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.”
Ecclesiastes 3:4
Many of us only have known despair in the scope of tangible experiences.
Tangible experiences are often also known as survival mode.
Coping. Just getting through the day. Or the next minute.
Just hang on.
That kind of thing.
Abuse. Poverty.
Horrific aftermaths of addictions, behaviors, choices, in which we become collateral damage.
We cope… with anyone and anything we can grab.
As a kid, one of those coping strategies was situation comedies.
“Sit-coms” were a lifeline as my childhood home was overrun with despair, depression, anger, and stifling control. As those became the only events I experienced, daily, I wanted the exact opposite.
Everyone loves to laugh.
I have never known of a person who absolutely detests laughing.
Sit-coms usually had a live audience taping, or, perhaps, the more cost-effective easier option of laugh tracks. Canned laughter simply inserted at the right punchlines of a television show.
As a child, I knew it was canned or “fake laughter.”
But I was desperate for any sign of joy, even if it was manufactured.
Even if it was today’s equivalent of AI.
Laugh tracks consoled me. Reassured me. It gave me a haven to let me know that, even in the joy-less home I occupied, I still could hear someone else laugh.
Even, via the manufactured laugh track, it came from imaginary friend territory.
Someone was happy; someone was laughing. Someone was experiencing joy.
