Laughing at Stress

I just found a wonderful website that reflects the Lutheran’s (The ECLA variety)commitment to wholeness for their clergy. You can find it at eclabop.org/home/livingwell .

One of the articles by Laura Gentry illustrates how laughter can be good medicine for a congregation during a stressful time. I share this part of it:

No heat on Sunday
It was less than 50 degrees inside
the church building when I arrived
for worship one Sunday morning in
February. I turned up all the thermostats,
but to no avail. After an hour,
it had only gotten colder. My toes
were growing numb in my church
shoes. When parishioners started
arriving, they were clearly annoyed.
Our church has a laughter club,
though, so we know how to handle
stress: we laugh! Conducting the
worship service in my big down
coat and polka-dotted wool hat, I
began with the announcements.
“I’ve learned that we can laugh at
anything,” I said, “so I’m going to
tell you what’s going on, and after
each statement, I want you to laugh
out loud. It’s less than 50 degrees
in here! Ha ha ha! We’ve just
discovered that we’re out of fuel
oil! Ha ha ha! And the fuel oil
truck won’t start because it’s 20
below outside so we’re just going
to be cold today! Ha ha ha!”
By laughing about the frustrating
situation, we raised our heart rates
and felt warmer right away. It put
everyone in a joyful mood. Even
though we were freezing, we
chuckled our way through the
service and ended up having a
great time.

I had not heard of a laughter club before but will try to find out more about it. I think it would be a good idea for clergy to belong to such a club.