Last weekend Bob and I were treated to a wonderful evening with my dear friends from college. After years of not seeing Ellie and Johan, we reconnected with them last year and were able to do it again this year. I laughed so much my cheeks hurt and I was so unwilling for the night to end that I'm sure we overstayed our welcome. I love watching how their personalities play off of each other, just like they did in college. Johan still employs his clever sarcasm and Ellie is just as strong minded as ever, still dumbstruck that she can't convince her brilliant husband to agree with everything she says--but she's not going to give up trying. It's obvious that their whole family enjoys a lot of good natured teasing...and they laugh and laugh.

I asked Bob if he remembers when we used to laugh and laugh. I was half kidding, but it made me realize that I'm really not laughing as much as I used to, and I'm not sure why. One of my resolutions for 2012 is to get to the bottom of it and start laughing more.

There have always been things that some people think are funny that I never have. Puns, for instance, regardless of how clever a pun might be, I never find them funny. I don't find anything remotely amusing about The Three Stooges or Road Runner, in fact I find them tortuous. I don't appreciate plays on words, that whole "Who's On First" routine bores me to tears. I don't think crude jokes are funny and slapstick is just well, too slapsticky. Out of peer pressure or politeness, I can usually muster up some semblance of a giggle but there is nothing harsher to my own ears than contrived laughter. After admitting to all this humorlessness I'm sure you're thinking it's not exactly a mystery why I'm not laughing enough. So the question is... what does make me laugh?

I asked Bob what he thought makes me laugh. He had to think a minute. He finally said that I think it's funny when people get hurt. Charming! He's talking about blooper shows where bride's veils catch on fire and stuff like that. We watched a clip once where an elephant broke loose from a parade, causing massive destruction and terror. I was laughing hysterically. But what made me laugh wasn't the destruction and terror, it was the voice of a little boy who was with the person filming it all. He sounded like he could only have been about 3 or 4 years old and he calmly observed that "the elephant was being bad." Through all the screaming and chaos, you can hear this completely unafraid little boy calmly expressing his disappointment that all of this hullabaloo was caused by one "bad" acting elephant.

So it's real life stuff that makes me laugh. Real stories, real people, a child's unique perspective, genuine clumsiness and mishaps. I think my problem must be that I'm rushing too much to live fully in the moment. I'm not laughing as much because I'm not slowing down enough to listen to the stories, or to listen for a story. The funny stories that life consists of, both past and present, are all getting short shrift because I'm hurrying too much to fully take them in. It seems like every year I resolve to slow down, but I don't think I've ever made the correlation between hurrying and laughing less (as obvious as it is). That night with my friends we enjoyed a slow, leisurely dinner, we re-told old stories and shared new ones...and I laughed and laughed.

I'm tired of not living fully in each moment and missing all the unexpected gifts of beauty, joy, love and laughter. So this year, once again, my biggest resolution is to slow down, to be fully there for each person and each circumstance that God brings along. And maybe, just maybe, I'll start laughing as much as I used to.

Happy New Year!