I wish I knew how to control my reactions sometimes. Have you ever had a reaction to something that was totally inappropriate? I have. When I found out my friend died this fall, I laughed. Maybe it had something to do with the way it was presented to me. Maybe it had to do with me not being there to see her in the final stages of her life to really 'get' the seriousness of her last few trips to the hospital. Maybe there was a part of me that didn't believe that she was actually gone, and so I laughed.
Sometimes we use laughter as a stress reliever, or in moments of shock. When my great-grandmother died when I was 12, I remember my aunt and uncle immediately cracking jokes about her life, and I was mortified. "How can you disrespect her memory like that?!" I was screaming in my head. I wanted to engage in the solemnity of loss and honor, and all they could do was poke fun. Now I find myself laughing at inappropriate times, cracking jokes to try to break tension. If I feel like crying, I try to choke it out with laughter, or if someone else is feeling tense or down, I'll immediately try to brush it off by being funny. While laughter is good, it's not always appropriate. Kind of like walking into a funeral wearing a bikini....except that the person who comes to a funeral wearing a bikini has probably had some control in their choice of attire for that occasion. Unfortunately, we sometimes have less control over what strikes us as funny in any given point in time. Lord, clothe me in humility. Help me to be one who weeps with the weeping and rejoices with those who are rejoicing.