Aug 3, 2025 | By: Cathy Jean Norman
Hello there, friends of Unity Joy of Life!
In the 1970s, there was a new restaurant, The Chart House, that was being opened 30 minutes away from our little town. My dad, so excited, he made reservations. We drove 30 minutes, we got seated, we're waiting for our food, and all of a sudden, there is this stunning, beautiful woman walking out of the restroom, and what is traipsing behind her, stuck to her shoe, are yards of toilet paper. Well, there's someone that's in the corner laughing hysterically. He sees it. My brother and I start laughing. My parents joined in. They start laughing. Before you knew it, the whole room is just laughing out of control. And then as soon as things died down a little bit, somebody would start to snicker again. And then once again, the whole room, everybody started to laugh. And I remember my mom saying at the time, she said, "Ah, the universal language of joy that everyone understands."
Laughter! It just connects everyone, no matter what your language is.
In the Course in Miracles, it says, laughter is the Holy Spirit's way of reminding you that you are innocent. Isn't that beautiful? You are innocent.
Maybe you might remember Dr. Norman Cousins. He was a professor, he was a writer, he was a political activist before he was diagnosed with a very rare disease that I can't pronounce. And it was this rare disease, it was a chronic autoimmune disease with no cure, left him in just excruciating pain and he was unable to walk and so he was in the hospital and at the time he started to study the idea that emotions are biochemical realities. He realized at the time that, oh, maybe being a political activist left him angry most of the time and probably wasn't so good for his immune system. So what he decided to do was he checked himself into a hotel, took massive amounts of vitamin C, watched tapes of Candid Camera and the Marx Brothers, and just decided to create this biochemical reaction within his body so that his body could heal itself. And what he discovered was that a good 10 minutes of laughter allowed him to have at least 2 hours of pain-free sleep. Laughter produced a natural body anesthesia, if you will, and within months he was completely cured.
My friends, what has been found is the molecules that are secreted from laughter are called neuropeptides and they affect the immune system in a very healthy direction. So maybe instead of being angry at the state of the world - because you do have that choice - you can go there, but maybe ask yourself, "Is this anger worth my health and well-being?"
I leave you with a little medicine.
In Proverbs 17: 22, it says, "A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones."
Basically, my friends, laughter is good medicine.
Until next time, I'm keeping the faith for you.
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Sermon on the Molehill
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