I’ve been thinking about laughter again.

Here’s a passage from Dallas Willard’s excellent book, The Divine Conspiracy, that has been perculating in my mind for quite some time:

“Purely spiritual relationships with ‘others’ would, therefore, be dangerous at best, for they are inherently false to the human condition. That condition is one of labor, glory, dust, and death. it is one of constant incongruity between human dreams and dignity, on the one hand, and human realities, on the other. We are incarnate and finite beings, trailing clouds of overaspiration and ragged incompleteness. When our ’spirituality’ disconnects from the natural contexts and relationships that are always there nevertheless, one of the chief signs of what is happening is that we lose our ability to laugh.

Laughter is the automatic human response to incongruity, and incongruity is never lacking on the human scene, no matter how far advanced we may be into the kingdom. It is indelibly imprinted in our finitude. There will be lots of laughter in heaven, you can be sure, as well as joy, for our finitude will always remain…

We should note that one of the things that disappear when we are grinding away at others with our condemnations, blamings, and ‘pearls’ is, precisely, laughter. We become insufferably grim. But genuine shared laughter is one of the surest ways for human beings to come together and break the stalemates of life. It is essential to genuine community.”