I have been reading the popular book Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan. It is the story of pilgrims on their journey through life to the Celestial City—or heaven. When I got to the part where Christian met two characters named Formality and Hypocrisy, and according to their conversation, especially the way it ended, I thought of Kamala Harris.

I should give you more details of the conversation. When Christian noticed that Formality and Hypocrisy did not go through the gate that our Lord had required, he said to them,

Why did you not come in at the gate at the beginning of the way? …I walk by the rule of the Lord of the way; you follow your own fancy…you come in by yourselves without direction, and you shall go out by yourselves without His mercy.

And so the conversation went. And the two also had their own arguments. However, at the end, Formality and Hypocrisy “gave no answer, but looked at each other and laughed.”

Well, as I said, I immediately thought of Kamala Harris, because she also often laughs for no apparent reason when faced with a problematic situation. But why does she laugh? Or why do so many others like her laugh? Here are three reasons I came up with:

• Like Formality and Hypocrisy and Kamala, they know nothing of the truth. They go through the motions, but for them everything is relative; and therefore, all truth means nothing, so they laugh it off.
• They laugh to escape reality and truth. It is the way they cope with it.
• It is natural for a non-Christian to think that God’s truth is foolish; so, they laugh at it. They will laugh at all that is truly true.