Laughter does not appear to verify spiritual meaning. We expect solemnity when we deal with serious concerns. We do not laugh or even smile when we pray. On occasions of my attendance where grace has been offered at a banquet there appeared humor in prayer. It may be taken as innocent, but it did not seem devout in the lives of the diners. Like many gifts for life, humor can be distorted in either the practice of it, or an excess of time devoted to it. Further, it is not understood as an attitude that relates directly to serious values as do humility, affirmation, problem solving, and related orientations. It is rather easily grasped in assisting us in understanding when contrasted to negativism, pride, grouchiness, and selfishness.
We need to remember the standard perception that: there are always two sides to the coin. It is commonly taken that heads indicate affirmatives and tails indicate negatives. Life seems, sometimes to be guided by an invisible toss of the coin. Families, meant to be a blessing to us in personal development, acceptance, love, education, nurture, courage, support, safety, identity and the like can be cast as selfish, repressive, conflicting, loveless, and the like even for invitation to death. The church meaning as the house of God is for proclamation of the hope of the gospel, service to the needs of mankind, teaching values, love, and the affirmatives of God, has sometimes been turned into tensions, repressions, hatreds, divisions, even to the point of an unloving religiosity that can lead to torture and death. This pattern of positive and negative can be continued for analysis of personal conducts as well as governments, businesses, and any institution. God clearly gave us three institutions – in family (Adam and Eve), in government (Moses and Israel with legal directives) and church (Priesthood and laity in the Gospel and education beginning with Aaron and the Apostles). Scripture addresses the patterns for these, and suggests patterns for others, like business or other social entities. God appears to leave the human options to us to flip the coin back and forth in the clumsy way in which we function as persons either alone or in social groupings such as governments, free or oppressive. We seem to be conflicted in our management, unable to agree on values, processes, or leadership. Leaders and followers may be distracted by self-interests leading to greed, perhaps power and honor diversions, and the like so to miss the effective solutions to problems, personal and social. All these are touched by the depravity of the race that yields to a drag downward even to immorality that takes away or reduces stewardship, self-control, thoughtful ways, mutuality, happiness, fairness, balance, peace – including their sub-divisions. We need some higher power to save us from ourselves. Commonly, we haven’t the humility described in Scripture to gain the benefits from God’s provision. Humor helps humility, and humility contributes to reality, joy and acceptance. (We deal with genuine humor here.)
When something goes wrong or we tire with what we have, we tend to blame the institution. The story of Israel interests us. The Israelites were able to keep community as foreigners in Egypt; they formed a religious society in the wilderness; they designed a confederacy of tribes under judges; they chose an elected monarchy; they broke into two monarchies after Solomon and morphed into royal houses with heirs to thrones; and fell at last into their community as captives in Babylon; they tried again with a kind of eclectic government that floundered somewhat and fell to the Romans so as to be captives in their own land. When rebellion followed and they were defeated they turned to communities in various nations of the world – a people without a homeland. Their treatment in various repressions and pogroms is an extended story. In 1948 they were returned to part of their ancient land and have faced both inner tensions and enemy warfare since. The fault is not government, but mankind in government, and Israel’s experience is the experience of other peoples and nations. One of the ways in which we can live with such contradictions and suffering, is to have a fair degree of humor (attitude) even with those who can’t tell a humorous story. In this we say, we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Life is a serious matter, but we carry that context with some relief in humor – as we relieve a tight belt by moving it a notch down. When Jesus used the picture of the speck in the eye of one, and a beam in the eye of the accuser there were smiles and laughter in his audiences. Properly engaged divine humor belongs to forgiveness. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020