I've noticed recently that my laugh is getting louder. I don't know when this crept up on me but I now find myself exploding with loud laughter at Ken Bruces's jokes on Radio 2. I used to think him middle aged and annoying. Now I find him rather entertaining. When did I loosen up so much?
How has this happened to me? When did I stop holding back?
I was thinking about this on Monday and realised that the Holy Spirit has been loosening me up and knocking out the stupidity.
As Anne Lamott says " laughter is carbonated holiness. "
For the last couple of decades I have been getting inside that laughter and getting over the trauma of being around myself so much.
I remember the first time I listened to a preacher who really made me laugh out loud, Jesse Duplantis. Up until that point I hadn't heard a sermon that had any element of fun in it. Church was about being serious and quiet and respectful. And here I was faced with a man who was clearly enjoying himself and laughing his way through life. ( I've recently started watching Mark Gungor who has the same light hearted nature.)
One early mystic says we were created out of the laughter of the Trinity.
I love that idea. God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit, sitting around having a laugh together. Falling over laughing, wetting themselves laughing. Tears running down their faces laughing. Deep belly shaking joy.
I like to think about the joy that fell out of God when He created us.
Matthew Fox writes that “laughter may well be the ultimate act of letting go and letting be: the music of the divine cosmos. For in the core of the Trinity laughing and birthing go on all day long.”
To be honest this didn't happen overnight. Mine has been a slow but steady journey taken over many years. It has taken a gentle work of the Holy Spirit. He has moved me from the sensitive intense teenager to a person who doesn't take myself so seriously and laughs rather noisily.
I used to get this one liner from the Lord all the time. " STOP TAKING YOURSELF SO SERIOUSLY! " Nothing deeply spiritual. No big revelation. Just this little sentence that stopped me in my tracks and made me smile and shut me up from whatever I was worrying about.
I felt He was giving me permission to enjoy myself. Permission to laugh. Permission to relax. Despite this light hearted rebuke I still found it a major effort to loosen up. It was hard work getting relaxed. Dealing with myself was exhausting.
Self awareness is a crippling thing. I suffered badly from it in my early 20's. Just at the time when I was meant to be blossoming into a beautiful young woman and exploring my freedom and independence at University, the spots hit and the weight piled on. Hormones went all over the place and life was potentially very scary.
I was shocked and offended when registering at the University Medical centre when the nurse I saw for my first medical check informed me that I was a little 'on the heavy side.' Honest but mean. This was confirmed a little later when my application to join the RAF was rejected because I was overweight. The nice lady interviewing me politely informed me that if I lost a stone in weight in 2 weeks I would be considered. I lacked the moral fibre and ambition to lose that much baggage in a fortnight. It could have been achieved with a dangerous onslaught of diorrhea. Faced with flatulence or dignity I chose dignity.
However in the University holidays, devastated at my over ripe figure I signed up for Weight Watchers.
I remember my first and only visit to Weight Watchers. It was like walking the corridor of shame. I was weighed in. My height and age marked down. The scale of my over weightiness measured. I was given a book to record my daily calorie intake. I felt like a convict. It was miserable. We all sat in a circle on plastic blue chairs in a village hall and listened to a lecture on the joys of eating less. It was a nightmare. I was so depressed I never returned.
I think I was one of the few people to leave University with some money saved up and no student debts. This was because the government kindly paid for my education and my Dad paid for my living expenses. In my second and third year at University I shared a house with 4 other girls & we managed to exist on 15p tins of baked beans from ICELAND and 'Booms Fluff,' Naomi's grandmas recipe of jelly mixed with condensed milk for dessert.
This allowed me to save some of Dad's money because he had budgeted that I might spend a little bit more on food !
I ate very badly at University and yet over the three years I did regain my figure. (2 birds killed with one stone. Money saved and weight lost. Excellent.) But thinking back on it, my body image had very little to do with what I was eating. It was intervention of the Holy Spirit that was working wonders for my figure.
I had arrived at University fresh out of a year living in Namibia. I'd witnessed the birth of a nation, lived through the fall of the Berlin wall and Nelson Mandela's release from prison. It had been a whirlwind of adventure in a lavishly beautiful country. But as far as church goes, I had attended very few services. My year had been a very sweet personal journey with the Lord but now I was hungry to hang out with other young men and women who loved Jesus.
I was looking for fellowship and encouragement. What I hadn't been looking for was an encounter with the Holy Spirit.
But there He was. Waiting for me in a Boldrewood Medical Lecture Theatre of all places! Bubbling over with joy and laughter. I never expected Him to shake my world upside down. He just gently stepped in and took over.
When I first received the baptism in the Spirit no-one was praying for me. I was singing a worship song in English and next thing you know, I was singing in a new language and it truly was bubbling out of my inner being.
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’'
John 7:38
No-one made me say anything or do anything or explained what was going on. No-one laid hands on me or prayed for me. I was not asking for this. I was not even fully aware of what this was. But in His own sweet way the Lord baptised me in His Spirit.
In the hours and days that followed I felt like I had just won the lottery and couldn't wipe the smile off my face for days. My face muscles literally ached from smiling. It was awesome. I really did feel like I had been BORN AGAIN. I felt shiny and new.
As a result of this exuberance, I swung from University lectures to worship services and back, feeling slightly intoxicated on the Holy Spirit. I wrote 'I LOVE JESUS' in big letters in the snow lying on the tennis court of my Hall of Residence one night after dark. And in the morning when the sun rose and everyone woke up to see my large message written in the snow ... Oh dear. I got into a lot of trouble over that.
Then I scrawled the same message in the wet concrete down by the pedestrian crossing traffic lights. Happily that scrawl wasn't wiped out and probably still remains there to this day! Next adventure was reading Benny Hinn's book 'Good Morning Holy Spirit.' My life would never be the same again.
And so it was that what could have potentially been a time of intense insecurity and self awareness actually unfolded as the beginning of a huge new chapter in my life.
I probably eat more now than I ever did. There was a time when I looked at calories and counted them. Now I couldn't care less. I love butter. I love whole fat milk. Happily I studied some biochemistry for my University degree and learnt quickly how weird margarine is ( getting a fat molecule and water to hold together is not a natural process.)
Being happy has done more than any Weight Watchers diet could. It's hilarious. How on earth did being content become the best diet pill out there? Now I really do like my muffin top and happily admit that there will be probably never be a flat stomach in my future.
Body image tackled. Weight lost. University Degree completed. Bucket loads of joy emptied into my insides.
I look in the mirror these days and see deep wrinkles around my eyes. I call them my laughter lines. When I look closer I find that my face is completely lopsided. If hold my eyes at the same level then down below my mouth sits at an angle. If I hold my mouth straight then my eyes are no longer on the same level, one is higher than the other! It's really weird and shows itself especially well when I get a passport photo taken.
I'd like to fatten up my face which now seems to be dangerously drooping. It would be nice to have back the dewey soft skin of a teenager but the reality for me is that from this point forward I am heading towards papery skin, grey hair and wrinkles. Humbling but also liberating. I'd rather be laughing with Ken Bruce than over analysing my appearance.
“Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down.”
― Anne Lamott