This morning, something I read struck my "funny bone." What started as a chuckle built into laughing-out-loud hilarity as I imagined the scene the author was describing. Nobody else was home, so it was just me, but still, the laughter bubbled up and spilled over. And all this was prompted by a couple of lines of prose.

Having recovered from my laughing fit, I started thinking about how good it feels to laugh, and I got curious about the phenomenon of laughter. Why do we laugh? Why did God make that a part of the inventory of things we can feel and do? And what is it in us that produces a laugh?

Have you ever tried to analyze laughter, to figure out what happens in your mind and body to produce it? That's really tough to do, but here's an attempt: It's a feeling of inner joy that seems to bubble up and overflow from somewhere deep within your being. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines laughter as "rhythmic, vocalized expiratory and involuntary actions." Scientists who study laughter (gelotologists) have noted that unlike most of the other emotions, laughter is created by activity in several parts of the brain rather than just one area. In addition, when you laugh, not only is your brain involved, but you might gesture with your limbs and shake in your abdominal area as well as move various parts of your face. In other words, laughter involves pretty much your whole body.

There are all kinds of theories about laughter's cause: that it's a social reaction, that it's to release tension, that it's the result of our feeling superior to the object of the laughter, that it comes from our recognition that what has happened is the opposite of what should have happened.

You probably know that much research has been done on the effects of laughter, with general agreement among many researchers that laughter promotes healing, relieves pain, and is just generally good for the body and soul. I do believe that laughter is a gift from God, meant to help us express ourselves.

Unfortunately, like any gift, laughter can be misused too. Sometimes we choose to laugh at unwholesome jokes. Other times, we poke fun at a person because of some shortcoming or difference from the norm, and that kind of laughter inflicts pain rather than relieving it.

My brief foray into the subject of gelotology (the study of laughter) was interesting...but not a bit funny. The world, however, is full of things that can set me off ─ something one of my grandchildren says or does, a cartoon or joke, a humorous passage in a book, almost any of the I Love Lucy shows or the antics of Tim Conway or Don Knotts, even a new puppy as he explores the world.

From scripture, we know that even God laughs! But at what? Don't you wonder that? I can't wait to get to Heaven to ask Him all kinds of questions, and that's one of them: "What makes You laugh, Abba? What brings You joy?" Meanwhile, I'm very glad that when He made us, he built into us the capacity to laugh.

Father, thank you for the gift of laughter, for its power to heal and calm us. Help us to use this gift, like all others, wisely so that we choose to laugh at wholesome and un-hurtful things.

Kay Bradburn