Why Is God Laughing

In this refreshing new take on spirituality, bestselling author Deepak Chopra uses a fictional tale of a comedian and his unlikely mentor to show us a path back to hope, joy, and even enlightenment—with a lot of laughter along the way. Meet Mickey Fellows. A successful L.A. comedian, he’s just a regular guy, with his fair share of fears, egocentricities, and addictions. After his father’s death, Mickey meets a mysterious stranger named Francisco, who changes his life forever. The two begin an ongoing discussion about the true nature of being. Reluctantly at first, Mickey accepts the stranger’s help and starts to explore his own life in an effort to answer the riddles Francisco poses. Mickey starts to look at those aspects of himself that he has hidden behind a wall of wisecracks all his life. Eventually Mickey realizes that authentic humor opens him up to the power of spirit—allowing him to finally make real connections with people. After taking the reader on a journey with Mickey, Chopra then spells out the lessons that Mickey’s story imparts to us: ten reasons to be optimistic, even in our challenging world. Chopra believes that the healthiest response to life is laughter from the heart, and even in the face of global turmoil, we can cultivate an internal sense of optimism. Rich with humor and practical advice, Why Is God Laughing? shows us without a doubt that there is always a reason to be grateful, that every possibility holds the promise of abundance, and that obstacles are simply opportunities in disguise. In the end, we really don’t need a reason to be happy. The power of happiness lies within each of us, just waiting to be unleashed. And Mickey Fellows’s journey shows us the way.

Is Your Life Working? Most of us are trying to put together the jigsaw puzzle we call life without a very important piece. Over time this becomes incredibly frustrating. In this extraordinary book, Matthew Kelly powerfully demonstrates that we cannot live the life we have imagined, or experience the joy we yearn for, unless we learn to tend the soul. From there, with his classic style of practical wisdom, he teaches us how to remedy this problem. When our bodies are hungry, our stomachs growl. When our souls are hungry, we become irritable, restless, confused, overwhelmed, exhausted, anxious, discontent, and tend to focus on the things that matter least and neglect the things that matter most.

In this refreshing new take on spirituality, bestselling author Deepak Chopra uses a fictional tale of a comedian and his unlikely mentor to show us a path back to hope, joy, and even enlightenment—with a lot of laughter along the way. Meet Mickey Fellows. A successful L.A. comedian, he’s just a regular guy, with his fair share of fears, egocentricities, and addictions. After his father’s death, Mickey meets a mysterious stranger named Francisco, who changes his life forever. The two begin an ongoing discussion about the true nature of being. Reluctantly at first, Mickey accepts the stranger’s help and starts to explore his own life in an effort to answer the riddles Francisco poses. Mickey starts to look at those aspects of himself that he has hidden behind a wall of wisecracks all his life. Eventually Mickey realizes that authentic humor opens him up to the power of spirit—allowing him to finally make real connections with people. After taking the reader on a journey with Mickey, Chopra then spells out the lessons that Mickey’s story imparts to us: ten reasons to be optimistic, even in our challenging world. Chopra believes that the healthiest response to life is laughter from the heart, and even in the face of global turmoil, we can cultivate an internal sense of optimism. Rich with humor and practical advice, Why Is God Laughing? shows us without a doubt that there is always a reason to be grateful, that every possibility holds the promise of abundance, and that obstacles are simply opportunities in disguise. In the end, we really don’t need a reason to be happy. The power of happiness lies within each of us, just waiting to be unleashed. And Mickey Fellows’s journey shows us the way.

The old Yiddish proverb, “We plan, God laughs,” expresses a truth everyone can relate to. At every stage of life we make plans, setting out where we want to go and imagining what we will be like when we have “arrived.” But things have a way of turning out not quite as we hoped or expected. In WE PLAN, GOD LAUGHS, Sherre Hirsch argues that too often our plans are limited to ones we think up at bedtime, or are devised by our parents, or by what looks good on a résumé. Addressing serious spiritual issues, Hirsch takes readers through ten basics steps for formulating a plan that reflects who we are now and who we want to be—a plan that is alive, organic, and in sync with God. Hirsch teaches the importance of letting go and recognizing that even the most ordinary life is extraordinary in the eyes of God. She makes no foolish promise that life will turn out as we plan, but shows that with hope, faith, and belief, we can change our lives for the better and make a positive difference in the lives of others.

From bestselling poet Daniel Ladinsky, a rich collection that brings the great Sufi poet Hafiz to Western readers To Persians, the poems of Hafiz are not “classical literature” from a remote past but cherished wisdom from a dear and intimate friend that continues to be quoted in daily life. With uncanny insight, Hafiz captures the many forms and stages of love. His poetry outlines the stages of the mystic's “path of love”—a journey in which love dissolves personal boundaries and limitations to join larger processes of growth and transformation. With this stunning collection, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in capturing the essence of one of Islam’s greatest poetic and spiritual voices. “If you haven’t yet had the delight of dining with Daniel Ladinsky’s sweet, playful renderings of the musings of the great saints, I Heard God Laughing is a perfect appetizer. . . . This newly released edition of his first playful foray into Hafiz’s divinely inspired poetry is essential reading. . . . Ladinsky is a master who will be remembered for finally bringing Hafiz alive in the West.” —Alexandra Marks, The Christian Science Monitor

Winner of the 2016 Religious Communication Association Book of the Year Award In God Mocks, Terry Lindvall ventures into the muddy and dangerous realm of religious satire, chronicling its evolution from the biblical wit and humor of the Hebrew prophets through the Roman Era and the Middle Ages all the way up to the present. He takes the reader on a journey through the work of Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, and Mark Twain, and ending with the mediated entertainment of modern wags like Stephen Colbert. Lindvall finds that there is a method to the madness of these mockers: true satire, he argues, is at its heart moral outrage expressed in laughter. But there are remarkable differences in how these religious satirists express their outrage.The changing costumes of religious satirists fit their times. The earthy coarse language of Martin Luther and Sir Thomas More during the carnival spirit of the late medieval period was refined with the enlightened wit of Alexander Pope. The sacrilege of Monty Python does not translate well to the ironic voices of Soren Kierkegaard. The religious satirist does not even need to be part of the community of faith. All he needs is an eye and ear for the folly and chicanery of religious poseurs. To follow the paths of the satirist, writes Lindvall, is to encounter the odd and peculiar treasures who are God’s mouthpieces. In God Mocks, he offers an engaging look at their religious use of humor toward moral ends.

“Between Heaven and Mirth will make any reader smile. . . . Father Martin reminds us that happiness is the good God’s own goal for us.” —Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York From The Colbert Report’s “official chaplain” James Martin, SJ, author of the New York Times bestselling The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, comes a revolutionary look at how joy, humor, and laughter can change our lives and save our spirits. A Jesuit priest with a busy media ministry, Martin understands the intersections between spirituality and daily life. In Between Heaven and Mirth, he uses scriptural passages, the lives of the saints, the spiritual teachings of other traditions, and his own personal reflections to show us why joy is the inevitable result of faith, because a healthy spirituality and a healthy sense of humor go hand-in-hand with God's great plan for humankind.

Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins analyses how laughter has been used as a symbol in myths, rituals and festivals of Western religions, and has thus been inscribed in religious discourse. The Mesopotamian Anu, the Israelite Jahweh, the Greek Dionysos, the Gnostic Christ and the late modern Jesus were all laughing gods. Through their laughter, gods prove both their superiority and their proximity to humans. In this comprehensive study, Professor Gilhus examines the relationship between corporeal human laughter and spiritual divine laughter from c`ussical antiquity, to the Christian West and the modern era. She combines the study of the history of religion with social-scientific approaches, to provide an original and pertinent exploration of a universal human phenomenon, and its significance for the development of religions.