 |
|
When I was a pastor, I was invited by the parish’s women’s group to a parish lunch. After lunch, the group gave me a Christmas present.
At the presentation, one of the group’s leaders told a joke as she presented my present. Then I foolishly tried to match her joke.
As I began, the ladies started laughing long before I got to the punch line. Then, I discovered why.
When I told the joke, I forgot that I had a half cup of coffee in my hand. As I gestured, I spilled coffee on the leader’s beautiful Christmas blouse.
Providently, the group’s Christmas gift to me was a book on humor. Their leader must have read it, for she had a sense of humor.
Years later, she sent me a Christmas card with some money and a note that read, “Have a cup of coffee on me.”
I thanked her and wrote that I already had a cup of (spilled) coffee on her.
Sharing coffee in the right way often invites laughter and humor.
Don’t take yourself too seriously
M. Conrad Hyers, a minister who taught at Beloit College, wrote a book entitled Holy Laughter.
In his book, he wrote that Gilbert Keith Chesterton said that “Satan fell because of the gravity of his weight.” He took himself too seriously and thought he was equal to God.
I think that God created us humans with a sense of humor so we do not take ourselves too seriously.
We, humans, are reputed to be God’s only creatures with risibility or the ability to laugh.
Without a healthy sense of humor, there would be much more violence in a world where there is already too much.
Cabin fever
During the coronavirus pandemic, people are often confined which can lead to stress.
A healthy sense of humor can help relieve some of the stress. On the internet are jokes about the coronavirus.
Lockdown can lead to cabin fever (also called stir-crazy, from the use of stir to mean “prison”).
Cabin fever is a claustrophobic reaction, manifested as extreme irritability and restlessness, that takes place when a person or group ends up in an isolated or solitary location or is stuck indoors in confined quarters for an extended period of time. Sound familiar?
Healthy humor is holy
Healthy humor is holy. St. Teresa of Avila once remarked, “Lord, deliver me from sad faced saints.”
In the middle ages, monks cultivated a virtue called eutrapaleia or hilarity. Humor and laughter helped them to ease the tension of living closely together and bonded them as brothers in Christ.
Bill Kelly wrote, “After God created earth, He created man and woman. Then, to keep the whole thing from collapsing, He created humor.”
Monica and Bill Dodds, a married couple, once wrote a column from a religious perspective. They believed that humor is at the core of what binds couples together as family, siblings, and friends.
The Dodds believed that when family members share a happy and holy relationship then laughter and joy, a fruit of the Spirit, is there.
Research shows that laughter releases endorphins which can lead to good health.
Josh Billings wrote, “There is no humor in medicine, but healthy humor is good medicine.”
Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously and become tense. Our work may be affected as well as our relationships with family, customers, friends, and co-workers.
Avoiding fixating on ourselves
Lack of humor can fixate us on ourselves — on our failures and disappointments. It can bring tension to our work and irritation to our fellow workers. Humor can help us to persevere and stay serious.
A mother was having a dark day. The washer broke. Her husband was hospitalized. Unpaid bills came. The baby boy was crying. She called Dial a Prayer and the line was busy!
Desperately, she shoved a pacifier in her baby’s mouth, and she began to cry.
The youngster stopped crying and studied her like babies sometimes do. Then he put the pacifier in his mom’s mouth. She stopped crying and started laughing.
Her baby joined her and brightened her day.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta wanted her hospitals to be filled with laughter, humor, and joy!
I once regularly visited a parishioner who was dying of cancer.
Since he had a sense of humor, we shared jokes.
Although this did not cure his cancer, our shared humor helped him to live his last days in a happier way.
In Proverbs 15:14, it says, “A happy heart makes the face cheerful.”
The late Fr. Ray Maier often asked people how they felt. If they responded “great”, he would respond,
“Well, then inform your face!”
Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously, and we become tense.
Tenseness can affect our relationship with God, family, friends, and fellow workers. It can fixate us on ourselves, on our failures and disappointments. It can bring out our worst side.
God gave us a sense of humor. Let us use it in a healthy way or we may lose it! Use it or lose it!
Fr. Donald Lange is a pastor emeritus in the Diocese of Madison.