The Laughter of God

        “God has made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.”

         DEEP in my soul I heard the Laughter of God, ringing in silvery cadences through the timbers of my being, breaking the human bonds and limitations as a strong yet gentle wind in the forest sweeps aside the strands of cobweb. The hard, fast knots that I had tied slipped loose, and the snarls of beliefs broke free. The river of my human life, frozen by a thousand and one false ideas and teachings, broke joyously into expression and went bounding to the infinite sea of Life, to be lost and found at the same time. One dark cave of fear after another was illuminated by the light of this laughter and swampy areas of sick thoughts were dried up instantly. Parched sands of hopelessness and futile efforts were drenched by the living waters, sucked in-- absorbed instantly like a wave breaking on the sands. God laughing at me, and my puny efforts to make things happen; to make heaven appear; to attain the Sonship. Not the laugh of derision, but of infinite compassion, a laughter so deep and sweet, so pure and glorious that everything in the nature of struggle gave way before it.
         And the breath of that glorious laughter blew all the dirty rags of personal teaching and self-aggrandizement away from me, and at first the fierce joy that proceeded from the unheard-heard peals of laughter made me afraid-- afraid that everything worth while was being taken from me, and that I should be naked; but no sooner had the filthy rags of personality blown free than I was clothed in a panoply of light, and in this glorious raiment of light I saw for the first time the glory of the Spirit made flesh.
         I stood before the infinite peals of laughter, which flowed through all creation like floods of golden mist, filled with speechless wonder at the beauty of the world I had lived in which had been invisible because of my separation, because of my personal ideas about attainment. I was as a child with a small measure at the seaside, trying to carry off a little water when the whole sea was at my disposal, and I understood for the first time the exhaustless sea of substance about me, and that the idea of hoarding was but a childish fear grown into a Goliath by false teaching and beliefs. I suddenly became aware that the substance was everywhere, in everything, out of everything, and the only place of lack was in the hypnotic state of belief-- and I alone created and moved in this vacuum.
         And the glorious Laughter rolled on, searching the very joints and marrow of me-- dislodging every belief in fear, sickness, or age. And as it swept over me and through me and round about me, I was amazed with the wonder of it-- the fierce, terrible thing which was at the same time so beautiful and free. The wonder of it kept singing through my soul as veil after veil of belief was rent asunder and new kingdoms stood revealed. And the whole thing was as if one just saw a little deeper, as one looks through the surface reflection on a river and sees the pebbles and shells below, that was all; only the Laughter made this possible, for it cleared away all the effort and straining which in its attempt to see God had been halted at the reflection on the surface, instead of gazing into the limpid, glorious depth of Infinity.
         The Voice, as its honeyed tones flowed out like a burst of sunshine through storm-clouds, was so unlabored, so untrammeled, and so Divinely indifferent, it seemed to envelop me with an instant realization that all was well. No matter how many struggles had been made, no matter how many mistakes, how many shortcomings, how many failures, how long the belief, or how short the hate, it was all swept aside as nothing. The glorious Divine ease with which it was expressed made disease impossible. It was the overturning an overturning that had to take place before He, the Laughing One, could come into expression. The people of God are a people of joy, and it is not until they hear this God Laughter in their souls that they have attained to their heritage.
        What of this race that speaks of the Kingdom and doing the Father's work, and uses all the language of the Truth, and at the same time sows seeds of fear and hellish inventions?  What is this race that is always seeking evil to destroy, like a weasel seeks out a rat? What is the hopelessness they preach-- that on one hand, you are the Sons of God, and on the other, that you must fight against evil of every sort and nature? “Ah, yes, but, if, and maybe-- they roll these stumbling-blocks under their tongues with a wise twinkle in their eyes, as much as to say, Yes, it is all true, but it comes only with hard labor and long study, and it is not for such as you, sinner and worm of the dust that you are, until you have purified yourself in the fount of my wisdom and paid me personal homage.”
         And it is then that the Magdalene hears the Laughter of God and is clean and free; and in an instant too; and it is when the cripple hears the Laughter of God that he leaps to his feet and runs away praising the Living God. And it is when you, no matter where you are, or what you are, no matter what you have done or left undone, hear the Laughter of the God within and the God without, that you will crash through the gates of hell and find heaven, no matter what these gates may be-- person, place, or thing.
        One moment's recognition that you are the Son of the Living God, and you have attuned your ear for the Laughter of God which will put to flight all the stupid ideas of mine and thine, and free you into an expression that you have not yet dreamed of. How can you restrain the joy that fills you when you hear this laughter which, when it is heard, causes the winter of your discontent to break into full fruition, which causes you to see literally that “before they call I will answer,” is not a bit of euphonious language, but a positive living, glowing fact.
         “I was afraid,” and therefore you were driven out of the Garden of Life. You have been afraid that God will punish you-- that it is too good to be true-- that you are not ready-- that it comes by great learning; and so you are still without the portals of your own kingdom, trying every way but the only way to re-enter. Many there be who try the way of violence, and many who expect to ride in on the skirts of another. There are some so foolish as to invite this.
         Why do you not stop trying to get things, trying to learn how to get power, place? Why do you not come away from the man whose breath is in his nostrils?-- You who read this page, and go within and hear the Laughter of God, and know that “it does not matter” -- that the things which gave you great concern are all swept away into the dump heap? The sooner you learn this the sooner you will see they have no value.  And one time, when you take away their value, they are possible of attainment to you. You profess to be a follower of the Master.  If you in any way believe this, you will begin to listen for the Laughter of God through your whole being, and will know that the Laughter of God sets you free from the snarling discontent of the Tower of Babel in which you have been living.
        Presently, as you listen for this Laughter, you will hear it, and gradually you will begin laughing-- billows of laughter, silently-audible laughter that will shatter one limitation after another; laughter filled with the Divine Indifference which knows that the Universe is filled with God and only God, and to recognize this will cause this laughter to flow into expression and shatter the belief in sin, sickness, and death.  And when this belief is shattered in you, the pictures of this on your universe are dissipated and are no more, and even the place thereof is no more. You will know why there can be naught but laughter in the Kingdom of Heaven. What good of words or arguments? What in human sense is a lecture worth on the subject of Laughter, as compared to one glorious sudden peal of joy released by a God soul and picked up by all those in hearing distance?
         And gradually, as you learn of the Laughter of God and join in with the Glory of the Sons of the Living God, then you will laugh at yourself. You will perhaps go back and laugh all the mistakes and faults and limitations out of existence. You will stand with your glorious feet on the mountain-tops of Self-Revelation, laughing at your universe and with your universe, and laughing in words: “It is wonderful, it is wonderful, it is wonderful.”
         “Let the filthy be filthy still." Some may read into the Laughter of God a belief in carelessness and indifference, and some consecrated souls may rail and rear their hair and say that it is encouraging license and making nothing of sin, in order that one may indulge in sin, and so on; and for them this message is not.
         He that hath ears shall hear what the Scripture saith unto the Churches, and only he that hath a single eye is through with trying to twist meanings to suit personal ends. But he that hath the consciousness of the Son of the Living God shall not find it strange that “he that is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity” should laugh at the belief in it that has bound men for so long; and this Divine disregard does not in any way encourage license, but gives liberty to the Sons of God. It breaks up the dank morasses of human belief and reveals itself as heaven, a state of consciousness, which finds not happiness at the disposal of sin, health at the disposal of sickness, and harmony at the disposal of in harmony; but finds these pairs of opposites swept away. It finds man the individual Son of the Living God, experiencing power and wisdom such as could not be put in human language.
         The impress of the Divine upon the human causes the human to express in what to the unenlightened thought may seem to be a supernatural way. The how and why and when are all vested in the limited human concept of life.
        When are you going to start laughing the Laughter of God? When are you going to join in the glorious chorus which is already encircling the globe, and which has for its password “It is wonderful?”  You cannot stop this laughter once it is started; you will shatter the belief in disease in thousands as you go along your way-- not by a poor, half-hearted way of beseeching God, but with the ringing Laughter of God in your Soul which knows no sickness, sin, or disease, and hence cannot look upon it. And in this very knowledge it will impress the consciousness with the Eternal well-being of the Son of the Living God. The man, if he hear the Laughter-- that is, if he be willing to hear it, instead of accepting the pinched human concepts of his human reasonings-- shall break the bounds of his limitations; crash through the gates of brass; shake off the shackles of beliefs; burst through the prison bars of his own making, and find himself free, free, free, and find his soul ringing with laughter and with the song "It is wonderful.”
        Whoever you are who reads this page-- you who sit in prison houses of disease, sin, and unhappiness-- listen, listen, listen. I AM the door of attainment.
         He will “fill thy mouth with laughing and thy lips with rejoicing.” -- I AM the door to this glorious Laughter of God-- I AM the way to the eternal bliss and harmony of the Sons of the Living God. No matter where this finds you; nothing is hopeless or helpless; this joyous Laughter of the recognition of God, here and now, of the Finished Kingdom-- of the sudden discovery that Jesus was not a liar, but a truth-sayer, a concrete truth-sayer, when He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand-- it is within you”-- will cause this Kingdom to descend out of the clouds of your belief and be real.
         How can you help laughing silently and audibly the Laughter of God, and see its ringing notes shatter the silly arguments about life? “The wisdom of man is foolish in the eyes of God.” Why try to measure the inspiration of the Almighty against any man-made teaching! “I will make you fishers of men.” I, the I AM, when once discovered will make the one who discovers it a Fisher of Men. Who can resist the Laughter of God-- the fearless Laughter of God ringing through the universe, sweeping all the debris of human belief out of the way?-- no matter if it be thousands of years old, and hoary with the respect of mankind. Not one stone shall remain in place. The very foundations of the human belief shall be shaken in order that the True Cornerstone, which has been rejected up to now, shall be laid. Yes, the Stone-- the very Stone that the Master gave to us-- the philosopher's Stone if you will, which we have rejected, because to accept it would have been to have overthrown great temples of human reasoning-- will finally be made the Head Stone of the Temple of Truth. You are the Temple of the Living God, and from out the inner recesses of your being proceeds the Laughter of God. “The Sons of God shout for joy.” You will shout for joy, not because of victory over evil, but because you have at last realized that the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place of overcoming evil, but of revelation which is above the belief of a divided universe. Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee Light.
        And I heard the Laughter of God in the Soul of my very being-- ringing in glorious cadence throughout my universe, causing me suddenly to burst into a glorious laughter which was full of praise, full of wonder-- full of wonder and amazement at that which I had missed through looking through a glass darkly. “Arise, shine, for thy light has come”-- do you hear? “It is wonderful! It is wonderful! It is wonderful!” Heaven and earth are full of Thee-- sin, sickness, and death have vanished away. I hear the Laughter of God ringing in the deep recesses of your soul, you who read this page. I see the moving finger writing across all the worries and fears of a lifetime “It does not matter,” and I see this laughter writing the things of beauty over the walls of your temple and casting a glorious glistening white robe-- a seamless robe of attainment-- over you. And at last I hear you laughing from the mountain-peak as you go on your way, without thought of scrip or purse or robe or ring or upper chamber, and long before you have reached your destination the Laughter of God in your soul has gone ahead and made ready the upper chamber, and the Host has come out to receive you. Under the aegis of Jesus Christ you can “go” with the Laughter of God in your heart.

Walter C. Lanyon