A few years ago I was not employed as the regular secretary at our church, but I was filling in after our long-term secretary quit without notice. Our pastor, at that time, was extremely organized, very type-A. As we all know I am not at all either one of those. One day in particular stands out among the many of funny happenings.

On this day he buzzed into my office with a wild look in his eyes, zipped behind my desk, looked at me and said, “Is my head on straight?” I looked at him, I tipped my head, I tipped it the other way, wrinkled my brow and finally said, “Yes. But your tie is crooked.”

Because that’s how I roll.

It’s funny what we think of as funny and what makes us laugh. Sometimes we laugh at things that aren’t even really all that funny. Sometimes we laugh because we don’t want anyone to know we didn’t get the joke. Sometimes we laugh because we’re tired, or insecure, surprised, or feel awkward.

Laughter has been called, “jogging for your insides”, it’s good medicine. It’s healthy. And we don’t do enough of it. There is way too much hard in life it seems to really let ourselves throw our heads back in laughter. Not polite laughter, I’m talking loud, let it loose laughter genuine, real. Laugh until tears roll down your cheeks and then laugh some more because tears are cascading down your cheeks.

We are entirely too serious all the time. Yes, life is hard. I get that. But that is why we need laughter. We need the laughter to counter the sad, the bad, the hard. Laughter is like a reset button for our emotions.

We don’t laugh because we feel good, we feel good because we laugh. And we should all laugh a whole lot more. Laugh at ourselves. Laugh with others. Tell funny stories and joke. Look for the silly, the funny, the hilarious. It’s all around us all the time. Every day. We’re surrounded by things to make us laugh.

And we ignore them.

Are we really all that depressed? Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not knocking those who truly suffer with the affliction we call depression. I think though, some of us aren’t depressed we’re just sad. Because just as the little lost boy, from Peter Pan, lost his marbles, we’ve lost our laughter. We’ve lost our funny.

I’ve lost my funny. At least here I have. I’m still the hilarious person I was. But not here. Here it seems I can only write heavy-hearted things. But I want to laugh. I need to laugh and so do you.

Life isn’t hard and then you die. Life is funny and then you laugh. And then you laugh some more. We laugh at inappropriate times, I get that. I’m the queen of inappropriate laughter. But we also don’t laugh at appropriate times. There are so many times life calls for a response of laughter and we don’t have it. We don’t give it. I think we’ve forgotten how. And I want to remember how to laugh.

I want to remember how to laugh and I want to remember to laugh. I want to remember that it’s okay to be silly. It’s okay to do funny things. It’s a good thing to see the humor in life, and life is full of humor.

There are enough hard things in life, enough things to steal our joy, trap our laughter, we need more things that reek of silly.

This is where I wrap it all up with a funny story to make you laugh. Because we need it. But it’s Valentine’s day, and that really has nothing to do with anything. Except I’m tired. Exhausted.  This is all I have.