Twisted giggles.

Something about living here, in this particular place with these circumstances, makes us laugh in the face of terror. I've been reading a book whose main thesis is soley this: laughter is a response, a defiant response, in the face of unbearable circumstances. Black humor runs rampant in the favelas, as I've come to realize. Where others shudder or shy away from even commenting, we tell and re-tell and find humor. Whether it's a off-the cuff comment about cremation that brings even the most timid to venture a comment about the dumpsters and their free funeral services, eliciting knowing laughs, or a group of us favela dwellers laughing as we shock the better-off with both our stories and humor as we tell about the invasions, about the police with their armored cars and loudspeakers that play such uplifting tracks as "We're coming to suck out your souls..." I am pleased to report that I have never suffered having to hear THAT, but I still vividly remember Christmas Eve and the rollicking Santa laughs that rippled through the air as the cops came in shooting...

It reminds me of an anecdote I remember, from some missionaries working in a war-torn country...how, as they hid under the kitchen table during a bombing raid, someone thought to grab a hand-held tape recorder. And they made a tourism tape, a ghoulish invite to their beautiful country, complete with heart-racing adventures, trips under the furniture, and every day a new landscape due to the bombings...

Manguinhos isn't that bad, in comparison. I just hear some gunfire at night...

But the laughter remains. And I find that it separates me, that this laughter makes a distinctive mark between the classes. Those who laugh, laugh because most of their "weapons" have been taken from them. They are citizens without rights in a system that does its best to ignore their existence. Those who laugh, do so because it is the only response left other than disabling fear or disabling anger. Laughter lets off the steam, and gives those who are willing a chance to refocus on something more productive. It lets us be creative. When we are neither imobilized in our anger nor paralyzed by our fear, we are a threat to this corrupt system. Those who do more, who laugh in the face of terrorism (for that is what this is), are a double threat. Our laughter provokes the oppressors because those who laugh have power. Or are crazy. And either way, they are no longer easily manipulated.

Christians are good at laughing. We should be...we're both crazy and on the winning side. And that must drive a lot of people and demons and slimy spirits mad...