Introduction:
Imagine that you are sitting across from God. You are very much alive and have the opportunity to ask five questions. What would you ask? Rather than interacting with this scenario as if it were theoretical, pretend that it is real—and let the revelations begin!
Laughing with God is quick and easy reading. It is a dialogue that can be read in an evening and re-read many times. The book is both simple and truthful. In conversation, flexibility and the importance of amusement and playfulness is valued over the seriousness which is currently robbing us of thoroughly wonderful lives. The dialogue is between two characters, a person and God, who explore the human condition together. God is representative of the inspired bliss that exists in all of us. The person takes on the role of being truly ignorant, sometimes embarrassing, always sincere and continually willing to learn.
While the author has a background in psychology, philosophy, neuro-linguistic programming and sales, he does not claim to be God or know God’s response to your questions. His research for this book revealed a fascinating discovery: The precise questions you would ask God (if you found yourself in His or Her presence) uncovers a story about you, reveals problems and unlocks the door to a life filled with childlike simplicity, warmth, ease and curiosity. Many people have reported that the process of thinking of their five questions for God was a revelation in itself. Laughing with God explores possible answers to many commonly-asked questions. What are your five questions for God? The answers to them may be waiting for you in this book.
What would like be like if you could celebrate and delight in waking, breathing, moving and thinking? How would like be if you could celebrate everything?
The purpose of the dialogue in this book is to make you a better philosopher and to playfully bring into question basic assumptions of life. Laughing with God provides an opening for living outside the tangle of importance we are often caught in. The main tools used to do this are paradox and contradiction. When we pass on the lessons of life, we pass on the certainty of having them repeated. A bowl of cherries does have pits, but these pits can grow into an orchard of cherry trees.
At thirteen I bought a puzzle ring for $8.00 which, at the time, seemed like a lot of money to me. Upon its purchase, the puzzle was solved and the ring was intact. In the inevitable event that I should take the ring apart, the manufacturers included an index card with instructions on how to solve the puzzle and put the ring back together. After several days I took the ring apart. With the confidence of a person who has the right instructions, I started to put the ring back together. After several frustrating, puzzling hours, my ring still did not resemble a ring, and I was both angry and upset. I read the instructions over and over, but I just couldn’t solve the puzzle. My $8.00 investment seemed like a big mistake.
At wits end, I showed the instructions and jumbled mess to a friend of mine. To put it bluntly, this friend was not as smart as I was. I had ample evidence to support this assertion, ranging from school grades to peer consensus. My friend looked at the instructions and converted the jumbled silver mess into a ring in less than a minute. He then taught me how to put the ring together by doing exactly what the instructions described. His trick was simply to follow the instructions without adding anything to them. Rather than following the instructions, I had attempted to figure them out and had made them much more complicated than they were. Putting the ring together was a simple task made difficult only by adding my own complexity.
With practice, I was soon putting the ring together and taking it apart in less than a minute. Learning to assemble the ring, I developed a newfound respect for my friend and his abilities in practical matters.
As you read this book, I suggest that you read it like my friend read the instructions to the ring. Read the words without trying to figure them out. Read the book without adding your own complexity. This may not be easy because we have been taught that big questions require complex answers—they don’t. There is nothing for you to figure out in this book and nothing for you to fill in. Read the words that are here and notice the changes that happen in your body, mind and perspective. Above all, enjoy reading it, and if the book gets complicated for you, go back to reading the words on the page and stop trying to figure them out. Relax and read on. Simply read the book and read the book simply.
A note from the author
Imagine that you have an attic and it is a mess. In it you have the dried out corsage from your first high school dance, a tea service from your first marriage, your best blanket preserved in plexiglass, a receipt for your first therapy session, S & H green stamp books, baseball cards and more. Your attic as so full that you cannot ever seem to find anything you want, only what you stumble upon. As a result, your attic is a stimulus that you must respond to.
Reorganizing things is not an option anymore. There is too much stuff. And you keep getting more. You read a new self help book and more great ideas go into the attic. People keep giving you opinions to store away. Unless you start throwing things out or in some way get rid of them, you will become dangerously top heavy.
“Help, I’m stuck in my head and I can’t get out.”
Nobody is around to help; other peoples’ attics are all bulging too. You do not have room for one more answer, solution, fad or thought. Thinking clearly can’t happen under these circumstances; neither can being sane.
Reading Laughing with God as a release, a letting go. It does not tell you what to think or how to think but offers you a philosophical spring cleaning with laughter along the way, a mental renaissance that can result from clearing out the theoretical debris and clutter that keeps you from having a practical and pleasing life. If your life is predictable, consistent, or manageable, it is time to let go.
This book is not intended to give you some new philosophy you have to find room for and which will further clutter your life. Nor is it intended to fit in with your current beliefs. It is offered to you so that you can clean up your life and have more fun and energy in the process. In the rough and tumble world of spiritual growth, there will be many false prophets, people who talk or write well but do not live quality lives, people who, like yourself, have sufficient clutter to choke their creativity and delight. Read Laughing with God, free yourself, and have more fun philosophically and otherwise.
With peace, love, and light,
Jerry
