Laugh Reflex
I really thought that I would one day out-grow this.
This is one of those things I just expected to stop doing.
Kinda like biting your nails, staying up late or drinking chocolate milk.
Some people have a gag-reflex. Nope, mine is laughing.
I have an instant laugh-reflex.
And it was made apparent the past week on our youth group ski trip.
I don't know when I would have officially considered myself to be an adult. Maybe it would be when my first reaction is not laughter when I see a teenager flying down a mountain at Mach 2 and meeting the 4 foot snow bank head on. Or perhaps setting up one of the sweetest unsuspecting girls in the youth group to be scared by the boy hiding in the back of the Uhaul trailer while she is loading her luggage at 4am.
We drove for 16 hours on Wednesday. At several times, I was the only one awake in the 15 passenger van. My only company was the music of the David Crowder* Band (though not shabby company) and my memories of hysterical moments like the ones I have already mentioned. I found those (and many more like them) to be so funny that I would be unable to surpress my smile and occasionally a giggle would escape.
I can't tell you how many times I have been hiding in the closet of an unsuspecting sibling or roomate, ready to do my civic duty and scare the living fire out of them for no apparent reason, when just the simple anticipation of what may transpire forces a smile on my face. A giggle would escape, my cover blown.
Why is it that when I see some of my favorite teenagers wipe out on a ski slope, my initial reaction is to laugh? I thought ministers were above this! Does this make me a bad youth minister? Of course I care about the well being of my kids, but I gotta tell you that watching a senior in high school take a face plant in 3 feet of snow only to lay there completely buried will keep you young!
I guess I become an adult when I run to my fallen kid with a cell phone ready to call 911 rather than a video camera flashing "REC".
I won't miss biting my nails... I may miss staying up late (it is around 1am as we speak) and will definately miss chocolate milk.
But I hope I never out-grow laughter.
Besides, I caught it all on camera!
M@
posted by Matt McBryde at 12:32 AM
6 Comments:
I think the key to becoming a good adult is not to loose that laugh reflex. I am glad you guys had a great time. Keep up the good work. Keep laughing.
9:35 AM
Matt,
What I remember of you as a kid is your laugh. It is who you are.
Stay young and laugh my friend.
Jessica's mom
10:46 PM
That is awesome-I can SO relate with you I am the same way!! I have been on a Spring Break campaign to work with Dry Bones in Denver (AWESOME!!) this week with a bunch of college kids-and I have laughed at just about everything...including when one of our students about broke his nose running into another guy as they were having a snowball fight!! Oh my-that was hillarious-and his nose is not broken, so it was alright to laugh!! ;)
I also add a little something...because I snort!! Heck, yes!! HA
It was great to see you at lectureship-glad to hear that the trip went well. I cannot ski worth a flip-I would totally be the one that face planted!! Have a wonderful weekend! God bless~
12:44 AM
thats a nice story and thought there. i dont mind your laugh its cool and its what i expect from everyone when i get guacamole smeared all over my face.
3:36 PM
Matt,
Some day you will be all grown up and it will be "your" kid that wipes out into the snow bank at mach-10.
Then it won't be that funny...
When the stinkin youth minister can't capture it on tape because he is too busy laughing and then you won't have actual footage of your daughter's alpine accident to show her and remind her of "how she doesn't need a lesson!" and put her in her place.
Dude, you lead us well and brought us back safely.
That is not a laughing matter.
I'm so proud of you.
Just do something with those nails though. Gosh!
1:59 PM
Your just returning to your primal roots - here's something I got off FOX News website: Dr Provine of UofMd wrote "Laughter: a Scientific Investigation." One of his central arguments is that humor and laughter are not inseparable...of 1,200 “laugh episodes,” he found that only 10-20 percent of laughs were generated by anything resembling a joke...Provine argues it has to do with the evolutionary development of laughter. In humans, laughter predates speech by perhaps millions of years. Before our human ancestors could talk with each other, laughter was a simpler method of communication." Later, hahaheeheehoho.
8:17 AM
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