Reflections by Ron Rolheiser, OMI
During my seminary studies, I read a book by Peter Berger entitled, A Rumor of Angels, in which he tries to point to various places within our everyday experience where, he submits, we have intimations of the divine, rumors of angels, hints that ordinary experience contains more than just the ordinary, that God is there.
One such experience, Berger submits, is that of a mother comforting a frightened child at night, using soothing words and gestures to assure the child that he or she need not be afraid that everything is all right, the world is in order. In saying those words, the mother is, in effect, implicitly praying the creed.
Another such intimation of the divine within ordinary experience, Berger suggests, is the phenomenon of laughter. In laughter, he submits, we intuit our transcendence: Given that we are able to laugh in any situation shows that there is something in us that is above that situation, transcendent to it. In laughter, Berger believes, we have a rumor of angels.
Commenting on the Beatitudes in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus says, blessed are you who are now weeping, for you shall laugh, theologian Karl Rahner says that what Jesus is saying suggests that the happiness of the final state will not just dry away our tears and bring us to peace, it will also bring us to laughter – “to an intoxication of joy”.
Hence, in laughter we do have a rumor of angels and we do intuit our transcendence. In laughter we do manifest that we are on good terms with reality, and on good terms with God. In laughter we affirm, loud, joyously, and to the world, the great mantra of Julian of Norwich that, in the end, all will be well, and all will be well, and every manner of being will be well – even though our world is not in that state today.
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