Monday, September 19, 2011

A LAUGH A DAY FOR LIFE

Malaysian Airlines in flight meal - Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

"She who laughs, lasts." At least that was Theresa of Avila's
philosophy. Theresa, a Spanish nun who founded the reformed order of
the Carmelites in 1562, used to look for novices who knew how to
laugh, eat and sleep. She believed that if they ate heartily, they
were healthy; if they slept well, they were more than likely free of
serious sin; and if they laughed, they had the necessary disposition
to survive a difficult life.

Abraham Lincoln must have also known that laughter is good medicine.
In writing about Lincoln's Civil War years, author Richard Hanser says
that on September 22, 1862, the War Cabinet was summoned to the White
House for a special session. Lincoln was reading a book as everyone
came in. Secretary of War Stanton later said this of the meeting:
"Finally the president turned to us and said, 'Gentlemen, did you ever
read anything of Artimus Ward? Let me read a chapter that is very
funny.'"

The president then read aloud a skit called "Highhanded Outrage at
Utica." Stanton was furious, but Lincoln read on and, at the end, he
laughed heartily. "Gentlemen," he asked, "why do you not laugh? With
the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh,
I should die. And you need this medicine as much as I do." It was at
this same session that the president pulled a paper from his tall hat
and read aloud the now immortalized Emancipation Proclamation.

He's right -- we may likely die without frequent and sustained doses
of laughter. After all, they who laugh, last.

Have you had your belly laugh today?

From Lifesupport

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