HAVE A NICE DAY

G. K. Chesterton said “Angels fly because they take themselves lightly” and Plato's remark that “Even the gods love jokes” must be right because it's even found in sacred writings. The Qur'an says “He who makes his companions laugh deserves Paradise”. It's found in the Bible, mostly in the Old Testament, although in the New Jesus used great humour in His teaching. Horace spoke of speaking the truth with a smile because often truth spoken with a smile will penetrate the mind and reach the heart; the lesson strikes home without wounding because of the wit in the saying.

Jesus knew that often the way to the heart of an audience is through a smile; and He said things which at the moment made men laugh, but which, when they thought about them, left them face to face with the gravity of truth. But often in Christian teaching laughter has been a heresy and seriousness has been identified with gloom.

As early as the 14th Century laughter was recognised as a healing process, whilst in the 20th a man with a painful and debilitating condition found that ten minutes boisterous laughter gave him two hours pain-free sleep. He took huge doses of vitamin C and watched humorous films, laughing until he was cured. Recent medical research shows that laughter lowers blood pressure, reduces anxiety, lowers aggression, dissolves tension, depression & grief and lowers inhibitions. We can laugh at our mistakes and our pain, for apparently laughter reduces pain by releasing endorphins that are more potent than the equivalent doses of morphine.

Laughter isn't just a release of tension but an act of defiance: a rude gesture aimed at those rigid rules and systems that want to make us conform. Laughter is subversive, it upsets things, it blows all the neatly arranged piles of paper into disarray. If we don't take either ourselves or life too seriously we are simply refusing to conform, to be pigeonholed, to be enslaved by the system. Someone reported that an infant school child laughs up to 300 times a day but the average adult only 17. Why? Are we too tense, uptight, do we take life, and ourselves, too seriously? We don't stop laughing because we get old. We get old because we stop laughing. Maybe we ought to be more like the angels and take ourselves lightly.

So let us laugh, not only to lighten our burdens, but those of everyone else we meet.

Mac  

WI WINNER

Anne Hepworth, a member of Wellesbourne WI, won the Wade Cup at the recent Spring Council Meeting of The Warwickshire Federation of Women's Institutes. The Competition was for an embroidered needle case and Anne's entry was outstanding. The cover was decorated with stump work (padded embroidery popular in Elizabethan times) in the shape of acorns and a ladybird. The case was trimmed with a hand-made braid and tassel.

The needle case, along with other craft work will be on display at Leamington Spa Town Hall on Saturday 5th July when the Warwickshire Federation is celebrating its 90th Birthday.