A Belly Laugh

A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. (Proverbs 17:22 ESV). All three of my grandchildren know how to laugh. Maggie, the youngest, really lights up when she laughs! And, it makes me feel good too. I would call this kind of laughter a “belly laugh.” The dictionary defines a belly laugh as “a deep, loud, hearty laugh.” Well, those kinds of laughs make me laugh; and when I laugh, I feel better all over. That’s what laughing does. It makes us feel better. There’s scientific proof of that. In The Anatomy of an Illness: As Perceived by the Patient, Norman Cousins tells of being hospitalized with a rare, crippling disease. When he was diagnosed as incurable, Cousins checked out of the hospital. Aware of the harmful effects that negative emotions can have on the body, Cousins reasoned the reverse was true. So he borrowed a movie projector and prescribed his own treatment, consisting of Marx Brothers films and old “Candid Camera” reruns. It didn’t take long for him to discover that 10 minutes of laughter provided two hours of pain-free sleep. Amazingly, his debilitating disease was eventually reversed. After the account of his victory appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Cousins received more than 3000 letters from appreciative physicians throughout the world. The scripture indicates the same truth. Our reading speaks of a “merry heart.” So, in order to do my best at making you laugh a bit today, here’s some “Aggie medicine”: Benign - What you be after you be eight. Bacteria - back door to cafeteria. Catscan - searching for the cat. Barium - What you do with dead folks. Fester - quicker than somebody else. Fibula - a small lie. Hangnail - What you hang your coat on. Labor pain - getting hurt at work. Morbid - A higher offer than I bid Nitrates - cheaper than day rates. Secretion - hiding something. Tablet - a small table to change babies on. Seizure - Roman emperor. Terminal Illness - getting sick at the train station. Tumor - more than one. Come on now… that’s funny! Find your merry heart today. It’s there. Whatever you face, heaven is right around the corner!