For Francis, Gilbert, and Clive
What if the secret of the universe is a bright one and not a bad one?
What if the Sons of God shouting for joy really had something to shout about?
What if the well-timed chide of a friend that lifts me out of a bad mood means something?
What if gravity and levity are not accidents of language but outworkings of the most substantial realities?
What if Dante did not mishear when he heard Paradise filled with the laughter of the Heavens?
What if joy really is the serious business of Heaven?
“But what of blessed are those who mourn?” you may ask. Isn’t it them — not those who laugh — who will be comforted?
But what if the laughter is the comfort? Aren’t those who mourn also often those who truly laugh?
Is it the sad and the oppressed who are serious and lifeless? Isn’t it more often the grave and the proud? Wasn’t it Satan who fell by force of gravity?
What if we see only the back of the world?
What if the light that as of yet only slips through the cracks will one day break open the door?
What if seriousness is not next to godliness, if mother was wrong to shout no running in church?
What if Shakespeare meant more than he knew when he called Yorrick — that lifeless skull — the man of infinite jest?
What if Yorrick’s death — his skull, his sadness, his silence — is a just a momentary affliction, a quick intermission, a blip on the radar?
What if his laughter will echo on into eternity?
What if the silence we endure is merely the silence of a sickroom?
What if the laughter of the Heavens is, for now, simply too loud for us to hear?