What’s The Crack?
Jesus wept, Jesus wept;
He never laughed, just cried.
In all the Gospels, tell me once
Did he see the funny side?
Poor, lied-to, broken, holy man,
Who suffered for our sins,
If you believe, or not, by God,
He paid for all our grins.
Then don’t we owe it back to him
That we should crack our face,
With heavenward heads and howls of mirth
At our sweet, cracked, human race?
It is true that, though he weeps several times, Jesus never once laughs in the Gospels. The only record of God laughing in the Old Testament is when he is deriding mankind’s weaknesses or laughing at us as he punishes us. He relishes our pain. If anyone can offer me another interpretation of that I am willing to hear it, I really am, because that is chilling whether you are a believer or not. I don’t believe in God, who seems to me indifferent at best – and that’s using all my human charity – but I do believe in powerful stories and that they can be, in mysterious ways, truer than the “Truth.” I think I believe in an extraordinary man called Jesus who had some sort of a handle on some sort of truth, and that’s the best I can do.
Brought to you by a pain in-the-arse-day in bed with some virus that is making my neck feel like a knotty sapling. Gah!
March 21st, 2009 at 7:46 pm
i’m sorry lady. i’m relatively certain you got the plague from me. it’s airborne now, you know…and you’re just a state away. prepare yourself for it to last 3 weeks.
and if there was a jesus…i’m fairly certain he thought poetry was a sin. just sayin’.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:18 am
By changing the water into wine, you would have to say he was having a laugh at the same time though. Reversing the entire process, as it were. Hmmmm?.
And why will google not autofill your blasted page.
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:01 am
Kara, this has been the winter of our discontent as well. Somebody could have made some real money from us if they’d harvested the gush from our noses. Snotoelectric power. It’s a green technology.
Vince, I don’t know. Sorry you’re having trouble.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Have the God Botherers been round again? Did the pirahnas in the moat get a decent feed this time or were they stringy,cyclist ones? Strange how their god never comes to their aid. ’snot much of a deity if you ask me.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:39 am
god, or at least his son, played in the number seven shirt for Manchester United. Eric Cantona didn’t laugh much either and was quite often found with an indifferent look on his face…..maybe godly types are just indifferent about stuff and things…….I miss Eric Cantona……
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:43 am
Judas was the joker of the bunch, I hear, always ripping the piss out of Jesus’ David Brentesque antics whenever Our Saviour popped into the olive grove to have a quickie with Mary M from Marketing
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:11 am
I’m not one bit sure about God/Allah but I suspect the grimace is due to billiousness, or splenetic reflux, at which Buddha breaks his shite laughing. And as for Jesus? Jesus wept.
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:15 am
I think the problem may lie with the humourless gits who wrote his unauthorised biography.
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:34 am
He wasn’t any help on my recent bed of pain but anyone who makes me laugh is a saint.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:43 am
Queenie, we get the corn-fed young men in the impeccable suits adn the old men with the rosy cheeks round our way. Lovely people usually and impossible to get too angry at. I have to wait til they’re facing the other way and a good bit down the path before I pick them off with the rifle.
Manuel, oo! ah! Cantona! Ooh ah Cantona! That’s all I know about Eric Cantona apart from the fact he was a legendary golfer who transformed the game into the contact sport it is today. I don’t know where I’d be without Wikipedia.
Gimme, Judas and Adolf: two names on nobody’s What To Call The Baby list. Anyway, Mary M was no better than she ought to be. First woman to be a fisher of men by fashioning stockings from Peter’s nets. They say the hemline of her simple robes was an olden-day scandal. A Saviour could hardly help himself really when you couple it to the fact that women are such inherently wicked temptresses, hell-bent on bringing good men low.
Conan, I like Jesus. He had some really good ideas. His dad’s just mean though.
Bock, some of the Gospels from the Apocrypha present a very different Jesus. The Gospel of Thomas – which is a riot, by the way – says he lived for the weekends.
ElizT, sorry to hear about your bed of pain, gal. What was up? Have you been sick?
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
Dear, I’ve been sitting on a post — still not quite complete, btw — which responds to your questions. Indeed, the existence of evil in the world and the concentration on messy things like sin and judgment has always troubled people. As to whether or not Jesus laughed, given that Christians believe that He was both fully human and fully God, I think he undoubtedly had a sense of humor. Just because something is not recounted in the four Gospels, is not proof of its non-existence. Stated differently, we’ve yet to find Christ’s day-planner or see You-tube vids posted.
Cheers, my friend and I hope you get well soon.
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
There is no Truth, only narratives – stories we use to make sense of the world. These stories shape and filter what we see and how we feel. Politicians, Religions, Advertisers all know how to manipulate stories in order to manipulate thoughts, beliefs and actions.
Whether God exists, or Jesus existed is irrelevant – it’s the stories and the belief in those stories which influence the world.
Sorry – I’m trapped in a serious, philosophical narrative at the moment. When I find a light hearted one, I’ll make a quip instead…
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I have to believe that God has a sense of humor. Why else would the world have walruses, duckbill platypuses and farts? And if I have any sort of faith at all, it includes the sincere belief that we were given our senses of humor to entertain, warm, and delight each other. Otherwise life would be a whole lot more awful than it already is…
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I suspect he did all his laughing before he went walkabout and performed his first miracle, which surely made him reflect holy shit. And I can relate, because I too stopped laughing when I reached 33, and was planning a brief post on same until I realised that I wasn’t waiting for the tea to draw as I had yet to even boil the kettle.
March 23rd, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Yes, Steamironmaiden, out of sorts; though which sorts is a mystery, certainly out of Allsorts. [Lame, this blog is too clever for me]
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:29 pm
I second Mary Witzl re: farts. Everybody laughs at them.
Cheers.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Rand, good point, me old chum. You and I disagree about this but you know I respect your opinion as thoughtful, genuine and perhaps with a touch of something extra that I lack: faith. It’s something I had at one point but it’s just not there in me any more and I can’t pretend it is. Sometimes I’ve wanted it back but it’s been a long time now and honestly, I can’t see me submitting to it again. Not in a personal Lord and Saviour anyway. maybe that lacks humility-that’s always been my tripwire in the past, but more and moe I see that as a very clever human trick by smart long-beards from millennia ago, to keep me invested in the church. I don’t see the divine in it any more. I might well be wrong. I don’t claim to have it right but this is where my head has settled on the thing. I always welcome your comments here, the more so when we disagree because you stop me settling into complacency and keep me thinking hard on it. And you’re a worthy arguer, you lawyer, you!
Kim, I think so too, I think it’s all about what stories we tell ourselves, but I think humans have a deep sense of story that runs deeper than the cynical plots of the day and shows us universal truths about ourselves and the world. I think to study mankind as deeply and truthfully as possible means to read literature. I don’t think not believing in God means to lack a meaningful life. I think there is already enough work for every person on the planet to make themselves better and more honest in our own heads and in the things we do in the world to make stuff better for other people, to give meaning to life a thousand times over what mere duty to an evidently indifferent God demands.
Mary, if I believed in the God of the bible I’d say his humour was dry, sometimes slapstick and often cruel. I’d say he was a lot like Evelyn Waugh or Kenneth Williams. Funny for sure, but not all that nice when it came down to it.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Eolai, there is too much of the love of life and tea about you for me to believe you had your last laugh at 33. Your beard maybe thick but I’ve seen you chuckle deep in there when you’ve been surrounded by Guinness and happy people. You don’t fool me, boyo.
ElizT, get away with you; I like the cut of your gib, madam. I love that you comment here. Also, Liquorice Allsorts are in my Top 3 Sweeties Ever.
Rand’, all the world loves a fart.
March 24th, 2009 at 5:30 am
I hope you are better soon and (going into granny mode) you are run down and need to take better care of yourself. Think on.
As you are in bed and thus a captive audience I’ll risk boring the pants off you. Recently MTL and I were discussing assisted suicide and whilst I would prefer to die than suffer with Alzheimer’s or any dreadful disease I realised that I had always trusted God – nothing to do with various religions just something innate in my being. And there would be my dilemma: whether to go on trusting or take matters into my own hands.
Anyway that is my problem and please don’t give me any Dawkins theories. There is nothing logical about my faith. Carry on:)
March 24th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Pat, hon, you aren’t boring at all. I like to hear different points of view, I really do. I’m not a fan of Dawkins. I think he’s insufferably arrogant and high-handed a good deal of the time and , for all his knowledge, lacking in some basic understandings about the human condition. I come from a place where faith is stamped on people as surely as the queen’s head is on a penny. I love, respect and have often been humbled by the faith of many of them. This is something lacking in me, it turns out this is innate in my being. I don’t begrudge anyone their faith, but – and I realize the two things are separate – I object to their dogma, especially where it shouts down their humanity.
Aside from your homey advice, you do remind me of my granny a lot. x
March 24th, 2009 at 8:03 am
And not only did he turn water into wine at parties, but if you had a few heads of cabbage available …
March 24th, 2009 at 8:53 am
What’s this “He”, paleface? And does She relish my pain in a Crosse and Blackwell or a Heinz way. I want/need a miracle of personal conviction for when our youngest turns to me, as he has done repeatedly and too recently, about angels and heaven and Her. You see he’s much smarter then me and I need a story that sticks for the next ten years, say.
btw, the poem at the start from where, please?
btw btw, Mama’s day vavoomed by whilst you were cradling your neck. Did they bring you daffs? Or undrinkable tea and mangled toast?
March 24th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Sniffly, the poem is mine. But lordy boyo, I have enough problems with what to tell my own kids without messing up yours too. Death, for example, is much more palatable for a kid with a heaven to believe in. Mammy’s Day isn’t til May over here though and they’re not buying the idea that I should get two. They don’t make mangled toast and undrinkable tea willy nilly, they’ll have me know. But I trump them by not caring. I just want someone to buy me an easter egg. Would love some daffs though. Drooping in a milk bottle. Don’t get them here, neever.
March 24th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Bock! Missed ya, hon! Wine has turned many a head cabbage-like all by itself, without anything holy needing to be involved at all.
March 24th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I loved the poem.
March 24th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
For the Daffs, you need to have a fridge to get ‘em going, and in a pot. Dry and cold for about 6 weeks, them plunge ‘em in the soil. And presto the little yellow delights will bound from the ground. You will not have them for very long.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:49 am
I am firmly convinced that Jesus laughed. Goodness knows, he had enough to laugh about in the antics of the apostles, etc., alone (Zacchaeus up in a tree, robes flapping in the wind, probably wasn’t wearing anything under them as tighty-whities had yet to be invented, so was mooning the general populace as he was trying to talk to Jesus …)
Did you ever see “Hannah and Her Sisters”, where the professor brother-in-law says, in a perfect deadpan voice, “If Jesus Christ came back to earth today and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.” ? That would include your corn-fed young men in suits.
I hope you feel better pronto! Drink tea with honey and lemon, watch junky TV, and rest, rest, rest, if your offspring will let you.
March 25th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
feel better, sugarpie! xoxox
March 26th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Hope you’re up and jigging about soon – a wee miracle wouldn’t go amiss either.
March 30th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
God was one helluva practical joker, though…putting balls on the outside – pretty funny. And setting up the big-boobied women sos they hafta throw those tits over their shoulder just to tie their shoes? hilarious.
April 1st, 2009 at 6:46 am
Just checking in. I hope you’re well.
And I brought you something.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:34 pm
If you were the son of a lying slapper who got knocked up and then spent the rest of her life blaming it on some mystical creature with wings; would you be so eager to laugh?
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Hey, Hi, hello, how you doin?
April 3rd, 2009 at 2:52 am
helloooooooooooooooooooo? where are you? xoxoxo
April 5th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Yes, where are you? I miss you.
April 5th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Just thinking of you and hoping things are grand with you.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:11 am
O GREAT ONE… give us a sign…. ideally a funny one!
April 8th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Hi, dear.
Checking in again to see how things are.
Cheers.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
No worries. peeps! All is well. Busy at the moment, that’s all. Chidders are on Easter break, that type of thing. be round to see yooz all soon.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
April 11th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Don’t tell me… it’s an obscure Leonard Cohen lyric, right?
Less flippantly: in Olive Schreiner’s classic South African Victorian-era novel The Story of an African Farm(highly recommended), one of the two central characters, the tortured farm hand Waldo, reaches an epiphany of sorts when he realises: “I love Jesus but I hate God!” Kind of echoes what you said.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Here via Randalls blog…
I suspect the Gospel where Jesus entertained the five thousand with knock knock jokes adn a sing-a-long was left out for editorial reasons. Loved the poem and hope you’re feeling better.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Not true – the Big Yin was the first winner of the Perrier award. Go over to my blog before the weekend, or go here.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
I remember watching an old TV interview with some po-faced religious broadcaster and Alan Watts, the Anglican-minister-turned-beat-guru, in which Watts mentioned the passage from Matthew 5:
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.
….and pointed out that the worse the crime the lighter the punishment, and that Jesus was clearly indulging in a bit of dead-pan humour here. And the po-faced interviewer spluttered and said “Do you mean that Jesus was making a JOKE?” as though that was totally unthinkable. Brilliant.
Actually I always thought the “Render unto Caesar” retort (Matthew 22:21), which is generally considered to be an example of a quick-witted escape from a loaded question, must have had Jesus laughing inwardly at least, and would certainly have had his followers high-fiving like the people in Shakespeare’s courtroom as Portia points out that Shylock’s contract doesn’t mention blood.
And what parent clearing up after a small child’s meal hasn’t smiled at the idea of the five thousand being fed because the volume of crumbs exceeded the amount of the original food?
April 16th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
K, sorta time missus. You seemed to be peeved at the recent spat. It was only a spat. The bed is still too big without you.
April 18th, 2009 at 9:13 am
children and easter/spring break…i don’t envy you, sugar! xoxoxo
(just checking in again.)
April 19th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Dear ProblemChildBride,
I found my way here via Randall Sherman’s exemplary website. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve joined this conversation so belatedly.
I will make the bold and perhaps rash claim that you are incorrect when you say you have no faith. I believe it is intellectually impossible to be faithless; faith is the very foundation of epistemology. No doubt you may be without a distinctly religious faith; like many people, you’ve no devotion to a BEING, or BEING-NESS (if you will), that might be considered divine, personal and transcendent. In all sincerity, I understand that — intimately.
As for laughter, I think you first need to ask why humans laugh. What Is humor? What IS laughter? What IS funny? One of your guests already posited that laughter is a coping mechanism. If this is so, and if Jesus was indeed God, then He has no need for such a mechanism. While I personally reject the idea that laughter is merely a form of coping, I am open to the possibility that laughter and humor are not entirely without some level of morbidity. We laugh when people trip and fall; we laugh when people are humiliated; we laugh when people are teased, mocked and derided. Ridicule is a part of humor; the ridiculous is often that which is risible. We laugh when people are chagrined, and we laugh when people are blind to circumstances we can easily see (irony). Schadenfreude is a fancy term for finding pleasure in someone’s misfortune; it is formed from the German words for “harm” and “joy”. We laugh at incongruities, at things that don’t belong (even children do this — and do so full of delight); we laugh at the illogical. Many people find death funny; from “Harold and Maude” to “Weekend at Bernie’s,” film producers and their many enthusiasts prove that morbidity can be a fount of giggling. Alas, we laugh at foibles and peccadilloes; we laugh at frailty and senility and weakness. We laugh at our luckless lives, or the ironies of any given day.
How much laughter — really — is actually born of pure joy? I rarely ever see people laughing — holding their sides in delightful breathlessness — at someone’s successes, or at someone’s strengths or noble achievements. (I note, too, that humans often laugh after a narrow escape or after the sudden cessation of some pain or annoyance.)
Hence, if there is a God and He were to visit us — in this world where brokenness is absolutely empirically justifiable — would we be offended if He were to laugh in our midst? Could such a Being even permit Himself to laugh? And if God were to laugh, is it possible that we could neither hear it nor see it, His joy being of another frequency altogether, just out of range of our failing eyesight, our dull hearing?
Recall that George W. Bush stopped playing golf during his presidency. He said he did this because he did not feel it appropriate that the Commander-in-Chief could be so merrily at leisure while his troops were in the line of fire. Surely one can easily make the case that soldiers defend America precisely so its citizens, including the president, can carelessly enjoy themselves, even during wartime. But the point is rather clear, at least in this analogy: merriment is not appropriate in certain conditions. If the human condition is what Christianity believes it to be, then perhaps the Incarnate God follows a certain courtesy, a certain decorum, appropriate to His office.
Lastly, Jesus did (apparently) attract children. They flocked to him. Doesn’t this imply a mirthful soul, a jolly man, a man who was the incarnation of something far deeper than humor or laughter; was He full of true joy? I can’t imagine that a sour, humorless, kill-joy of a man could attract even a single child.
Peace and mirth,
BG
April 19th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Dear ProblemChildBride,
After about twelve hours of reflection:
I should also add that humor is often a demonstration or presumption of power: those who laugh assume themselves superior to others, or conceive themselves as having mastery over a subject. At the risk of offending some of your guests, I note that some of the comments in this thread prove my point. I read recently (somewhere) that the biggest threat to civilization is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Laughter often is a buoyant manifestation of the illusion of knowledge. Some of the stupidest people enjoy hearty laughter. (And many truly evil souls do, too.)
In short, laughter is often a dismissive reflex for those people seeking to safeguard their self-image and status, dismissing difficulties — with a laugh — out of fear. The “truly right” choose laughter over the tedium of petty polemics. Why bother to mount a counter-argument when laughter gets such swift and easy results?
I also note that a parent will laugh and smile at a child’s success. But it is usually the parent’s OWN child that brings delight. When a parent sees his or her child fall behind a rival, it is rare that parental gaiety is entirely free of envy; is void of all invidious consternation or disappointment.
Just some quick thoughts, of course. Why DO we laugh, why DO we make merry? Isn’t merriment often born of victory, of the spoils of war, of taking first place? If so, it is no wonder Jesus might have chosen a more reticent manner.
But that’s not stopping us from having a good time, is it?
Peace and mirth,
BG
April 20th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Hello, been a bit busy lately. Not much time for the old blogging.
Thanks to all me regular commenters for taking the time, and also to the visitors via Randall who have brought their thoughts over here. It’s good to hear different viewpoints. In response generally, I’d like to post here the response I left at Randall’s. And then address some of the particulars of your arguments. My Randall comment (with extraneous familiarities left out):
“To the questions, you posit – Pascal-style:
1. I’m with you there. I think there was a First Cause, a Prime Mover, whatever you want to call it, and I call it God. That isas much a matter of faith as anything but it as far as I am able to go with it.
2. I don’t believe he is involved in our day to day lives. i dont think he intervenes. I think if he exists at all, he’s a domino pusher.
3. Given that I’m wrong on 2 and there is a God who gives the slightest of damns, he has revealed himself so far in such a way as to invite the terms “cruel” “monstrously egotistical” “merciless” and “petulant”, at least, covering it all with a convenient line about moving in mysterious ways, and scaring us into belief or it’s to hell with us.
4. I believe in Jesus, I just think his dad was horrible. If there has been a revelation to us, I reckon Jesus might well be the one. I think what is more likely, is that he was just an incredibly good, brave and holy-in-his-own-right mystic. A deeply sensitive, courageous and preternaturally generous man. His message seems so at odds with his father’s though. And what of the other prophets? And what of the Gospels we take “as gospel”. They are only 4 of a whole host of documents on Jesus life, cast aside as literally Apocryphal by one man with a church agenda in the distant past. The other gospels contain often contradictory information about the nature of Jesus and bis life and teachings. Why discard them becasue they are not the “time-honoured” ones, when they were chosen so arbritrarily in the first place.
You ask ” “Why bother railing against the Designated Hitter or Infield Fly Rule, if one doesn’t acknowledge the existence of the game of baseball?”
It is not my purpose to rail against a personal God I don’t believe in anyway, but when I see the damage belief in him does on our earth, I choose instead to rail against that. As much as anything I rail against the interpretations of the Bible that make it impossible for other people to live lives free from interference by the religious chokehold on the country. One of the tools I use in that railing, is the shaky ground on which the whole intricate and towering holy palace of beliefs is built. And that means questioning whether a personal God even exists and highlighting the contradictions belief in him requires we must swallow. “It’s a question of faith” was what I was taught when I ever asked difficult questions as a child, and even then I could begin to see that this fetishization of the idea of Faith was the cleverist trump card of all in religion. The guilt at not having it, or enough of it; the constant undermining of everything around you that suggests there is no god, by the worm of Faith.
The questions you ask of yourself are rigourous and worthy and they are to your credit as a man seeking the truth. It all turns on Faith though, and that is what I lack so I can proceed no further down that theological path with you.
You write “Yes, indeed there exists pain and suffering and terror and heartbreak. Yes, this existence of ours is really just a veil of tears. Alas, it’s all of our own making, and God experienced it all with each and every one of us.”
The tsunami in the Indian ocean was not of our making, to give but one example of natural disasters heaped upon us, by Nature as I see it, but if you believe in a personal God, you must also believe that he wills it to be so. He lets it happen.
At what point then does he say “It is finished.”?
Thanks for your time and patience with this, ole buddy.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Now to the specifics that occur to me reading some of your responses on the sam matter:
Bill, thanks for visiting. Your idea of laughter as being borne of our baser instincts of ridicule, schadenfreude, and cruelty, however mild, is something I refute strongly. You ask “How much laughter — really — is actually born of pure joy?” I think that if you look at a baby or a small child laughing, they are often laughing with a pure joy that our overloaded adult brains have forgotten. I think laughter at the absurdity of us, of our situation, of the world, of the funny thing a pet does is bubbling up all around us and, while I agree that laughter is often a coping mechanism for the tough things in life, I think merely apprehending absurdity and responding to it in the natural way – by laughing – does not carry such a negative indictment of our basic characters as you suggest. We are tickled, we are delighted, often we are carried away on mirth and bonhomie when we are laughing.
You also say “I can’t imagine that a sour, humorless, kill-joy of a man could attract even a single child.” That is not at all my view of Jesus. I don’t think Jesus was sour, I think Jesus was a deeply good man, but I think it is possible that he might have been humourless. Just what that means – without humour, deeply serious to the exclusion of humour – with no pejorative attached. I think it might have been just his character to be that way, and the world needs these sorts of people too. The way he differed from other humourless people is in his humility. The two things are rare to find in one individual. Jesus was a potent comnination of many traits, a magnetic man who has inspired the good in many millions of people since he lived. Deep seriousness is in iteself an attractive quality. Why must we always be squawking and laughing? (I would say, it’s because, by and large it is a part of the human condition: a good and not a bad or shameful part to be shied away from) His message was of mercy and love and peace, things we all too often choose to ignore in favour of behaving like the jealous, vengeful, proprietorial, angry God of the Old Testament, his father.
You conclude that despite our humour being so meanly and basely born that “But that’s not stopping us from having a good time, is it?” I disagree with that too. If we really believe humour is based in envy, mocking and self-protection in every instance, then I rather think it would stop us having a good time. I dont think humour is bad or anything to be ashamed of. It is not appropriate in every circumstance for sure, but, like sex – another thing we sometimes sweep away into a shameful cupboard, it is very, very human and necessary.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Bill and other disagreers with me! Thanks for your comments. Really. Although I disagree with you on these things, I thank you for taking the time here to leave thoughtful comments. I like to argue this stuff, for, as much as anything else, to find my own language and give shape to my own beliefs a bit better. Cheers.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I’ve been away, schlepping hot dogs at track meets and such. Not to mention a bit of a relapse with the EMBLOS’ health situation recently.
Anyway, I’m pondering your, as usual marvelous thoughts, and will respond shortly.
Goodness, I love this stuff. I know you don’t like single malt Scotch, but I’ll buy you a gin when I see you.
Cheers, my friend.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:49 pm
BTW. I disagree with Bill, which is another post entirely.
Cheers.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:54 am
Dear ProblemChildBride,
Thank you for not excoriating me for what I’ve posited here. I am finding it increasingly rare that folks will tolerate a serious discussion on anything. And yet here we are, seriously discussing that which is dear to all our hearts: laughter, humor; the giggles. In short, we are seriously discussing silliness (in all its wonderful forms).
Can I continue our conversation without either trying your patience or boring you to tears? I hope so.
I don’t think you’ve really addressed the questions I’ve raised. I have not said that ALL humor and laughter are born of morbidity. But surely much of our laughter comes from something less than what is best in humanity. I am sure it is hard for some of my readers to imagine that I am wildly committed to laughter, to playfulness and wit. I am tickled silly not merely by clever depictions of futility or the incongruous, but by giggling babies, bouncing puppies, and somersaulting bears. I love the simple things; I laugh freely and regularly.
But the question remains: why do I laugh? Related to it is the inquiry as to why babies laugh. The broader question is what is the nature of humor: What are its qualities and characteristics, its essence and its accidents? Until we know these things — or so I feel — we can’t accurately conclude whether Jesus, the alleged incarnation of God, should be known for His laughter.
Also, I think it’s important to note that the Gospel writers/redactors might actually be the humorless bunch: perhaps they were unable to show Jesus’ joy because they could not see or hear it.
If we accept that SOME humor is born of the morbid, the dark, and the sinister; if we accept that some humor is born of envy, jealousy, spite and the appearance of superiority; if we accept that some humor is born of the incongruous, the illogical; if we accept that some humor is born of pain, coping, and even despair, then it seems evident that a God intent on healing us of our darkness and our mortality is not going to laugh at any of these things. Would Jesus laugh at the “absurdity” of life if He does not think it absurd? (And if life is truly absurd, how could we know it without reference to that which is not absurd?) If life is futile, would a God who denies that futility laugh at Sisyphean struggles? I don’t think He would.
I know I already mentioned that Jesus apparently attracted children. I think such a “fact” significant. It is also clear that He enjoyed “paronomasia,” or the making of puns, and He understood and even employed ironic statements. These are all parts of humor, even if only small parts. Unfortunately we can’t access Jesus’ words in His original language, especially if His primary language was Aramaic. But in the end I am under the distinct impression that if Jesus laughed, He laughed at things that rarely make their way into the routines of stand-up comics, absurdists’ plays, or late-night TV. But Jesus loving the little children, well, that seems to me nothing but pure joy.
Peace,
BG
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:58 am
Alas, dear Randall, I can’t fathom you should dare disagree with the All-knowing Moi! I shake with incredulity.
I snicker in your general direction.
Bliss!
BG
April 24th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Hey Sam , Bill, remember the wedding feast, where they ran out of plonk? I think he musta smiled when asked to intervene. “ Fair nuff says He, the party must go on “, and correct me as I’m often light on detail, but did this one go on for a couple of days. And that loaves and fishes thing, surely at some stage he said “ More Peter? I weep H , feeding my flock! “
Bill, I think the humour thing is more to do with today. These gospels as I remember them lack depth, and there’s too much down to interpretation and pretence. It’s the constriction and formality of today’s big religions. It’s not working, and they’re getting a lousy press recently.
I wish you had thought me religion when I was younger Bill. I like your approach. Although I could never be a monastic monk which I believe is the only way I could accept all you say. But, I can go with a lot of it.
Hey Sam, are you EVER coming back ?
April 24th, 2009 at 8:07 am
I’m the impatient tapper
April 25th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
‘Jesus, He lived for the weekend’. I can just picture him in the TRINITY ROOMS! (If you’re not from Limerick..forget it!)
April 27th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Knock, knock?
Ahem?
Hellooooooooooo?
[Do you think the gales have blown her right away?]
HELLOOOOOOOOOooooooooooOOOOOOh?
Right, I’m going to have a nose around….
May 1st, 2009 at 1:55 am
I just popped over again because I felt laughter coming on. Or was it crying?
May 5th, 2009 at 6:23 am
((hugs))
May 6th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Was having a Latigo Flint moment, found you, stopped in for a read.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
what the boys said, sugar…and i might add, where the fuck are you? (silly southerner that i am) i miss you!
xoxoxox
May 11th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Dear ProblemChildBride,
I hope that the virus that was affecting you when you wrote your post in March was not an indicator of something more serious. Please know that I, too, am thinking of you (I know I am new here, but that does not limit my concern).
Be well.
BG
May 12th, 2009 at 2:33 am
Not only do I find it chilling that God doesn’t laugh, God also apparently gave us human suffering, disease and disasters. Cheers ‘Our Saviour’
Tsk
May 13th, 2009 at 7:09 am
Just checking in. I know how life can interfere with this blog business.
Cheers.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Hello. Howya?
May 18th, 2009 at 9:48 am
How’s it going PCB? Long time no blog. Hope you’re ok.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Hope everything is OK over there in Och Aye California. Give us a sign!
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:31 am
Not dead. Just busy. Thanks for your lovely messages, sweet peeps, I appreciate then all, I really do. I’m not the best at keeping up with and responding to people right now and I’m sorry about it. It means I don’t deserve my friends but I promise, if you’ve written and I haven’t replied yet, it’s truly nothing personal. Busy these days, is all. And follicle-rippingly disorganized to boot. Back soon.
x
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:39 am
Jeebus never sneezed either
May 10th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
I always liked the late Rev. Alan Watts’s idea (with which he once utterly shocked a TV interviewer into silence) that when Jesus said in the Sernon On The Mount that anyone guilty of murder would face the judgement of the court, while anyone who called someone else a fool would face hell fire, he was making a joke. And the “render unto Caesar” episode always makes me want to go “Ta-daaa!” at the end – it’s the kind of smart comeback you’d expect from a stand-up comic. Mayve not laughing, but I can’t believe Jesus wasn’t grinning from ear to ear as he high-fived the disciples after that one.