Laughter is proof that seriousness is not the only honest response to life.

Grief, awe, absurdity, and delight are all honest responses to being alive, and seriousness has no special claim to being the truthful one. People laugh at funerals and in hospitals not because they are avoiding reality but because reality is genuinely larger than solemnity can hold. Laughter is one of the ways a person tells the truth about something too big for a single tone.

If you find yourself judging your own lightness in a hard season, ease off. Laughing does not mean you have stopped taking something seriously. It usually means you are still whole enough to hold more than one thing at once.