Why We Need A Different Way To Do Holy
When I wrote recently about poetry’s capacity to unite and to heal, I received an impassioned note from a friend whom I respect immensely who is an artist and deeply spiritual person. She said we don’t need more poetry right now. What we need is more laughter.
“Poetry is serious business, and I can’t do serious right now,” my friend wrote. “I need humor … I see the word [spiritual] retreat and that’s what it does to me — makes me retreat when I want to go forward and dance and smile again and even belly laugh.”
My friend has a point. Even I, who at first welcomed having a quieter, slower pace, have begun to experience pandemic burnout.
I still think participating in virtual spiritual retreats (what I prefer to call “days of recollection”) is a good way these days to keep centered and connect with others. There exists an even simpler remedy — and way to tap into the sacred. Find something to laugh about.
I’ve gotten some good laughs lately out of the Internet memes of Sen. Bernie Sanders seated on a folding chair at the Biden inauguration, clutching his now-famous Jen Ellis mittens. There are memes of Bernie as a snow man wearing his mittens. Bernie as an upside-down bat. Bernie inserted into the iconic photo of a sailor kissing a woman after VE-Day in Times Square.
I’m so hungry for frivolity these days that I even laugh out loud at TV commercials. My favorite is the one for Allstate Insurance where Edith Piaf sings “Je Ne Regrette Rien” (I Regret Nothing) as a driver cruises blissfully along, unaware that he’s left a gelatin mold on the roof of his car.
It reminds me to laugh at myself for all the times I’ve driven off with a briefcase or shopping bag on the car roof.
One of my most cherished spiritual texts is “The Rule of St. Benedict.” However, the saint who encourages us to maintain a healthy life balance somehow leaves laughter out of the equation. He writes in a chapter on Restraint of Speech, “We absolutely condemn in all places any vulgarity and gossip and talk leading to laughter.”
I’ve concluded that Benedict isn’t condemning humor per se. As anyone who has visited a monastery knows, monastic men and women possess a delightfully wry way of looking at themselves and the world. We don’t need to drown in dourness to pursue a spiritual life.
Rather, Benedict is talking about laughter that comes at the expense of others, the kind of biting sarcasm that wounds, and the sort of obscenity-laden humor popular among many of today’s professional comics.
I recently discovered the writings of William B. Miller, an Episcopal minister who lives in Covington, La and whose books include “The Beer Drinker’s Guide to God” and “The Gospel According to Sam.” Not Samuel of the Old Testament, but Miller’s dog Sam (and we all know what God spelled backwards is).
Miller says, “God is the originator of irony, the progenitor of the punchline, the creator of comedy. You have to laugh if you are going to get God.” (To find more of his writings, visit www.fatherbill.net).
If we approach Scripture with beginner’s mind, we might find a fair amount of hidden humor, even in the midst of so much angst, martyrdom, fear and exile. The many twists of the Old Testament story of Jonah and the whale might make for a good for a belly laugh (pun intended).
So many homilies we hear in church are serious to the point of being sleep-inducing. Who wants to come away from church feeling worse than when you went in? My clergy friends might take a lesson from the aptly named minister Debra Joy Hart.
Hart juggles life as registered nurse, grief counselor, part-time minister at the Unity Church in Urbana, Il. and “certified joyologist.” She founded the “1,000 Red Noses” project to hand out rubber clown noses as a fun way to draw attention to serious causes.
In a sermon on forgiveness, Hart uses a joke to underscore just how hard it is to forgive, and forget:
A rabbi was speaking to his congregation on Yom Kippur about forgiveness and asked for a show of hands as to how many felt that they had forgiven their enemies. About half the congregation raised hands.
He then asked how many wanted to forgive their enemies. Slowly every hand went up, except for that of 98-year-old Sadie.
“Sadie,” the rabbi asked, “Are you not willing to forgive your enemies even on this Day of Atonement when God forgives us all?”
“I don’t have any enemies,” Sadie replied.
“What a blessing and lesson to us all you are!” the rabbi said. “Would you please stand up and tell us all how a person can live to 98 and not have an enemy in the world.”
Sadie rose slowly, faced the congregation, smiled and said, “I outlived all those old yentes.”
I will remember that sermon because it makes me look with honesty at my own inability to forgive — but does it with humor. (You can sample Hart’s writings at www.debrajoyhart.com).
I’m grateful to my friend, the artist, who wrote me about her need for a little more light-heartedness. “Let’s do holy a different way,” she suggests. “How about finger painting, making mud pies and jumping rope.”
Comedian Milton Berle once said, “Laughter is an instant vacation.” Since most of us aren’t traveling right now, why don’t we try lounging this week on a virtual beach of laughter.
What stories, jokes, books, TV series, or films are making you laugh?
