Humor and Spirituality

I was talking with a person about spiritual growth today.  We happened on the topic of humor and its role in spiritual growth.  This man is well aware that I have a propensity to laugh at myself, to laugh with others and to envision a diety or God which has does not take himself/herself/itself too seriously.     That prompted me to attempt to reflect on my understanding of the relationship between humor and spirituality.   I started my reflection with a rereading of the following poem by Saint Thomas More.

Prayer for Good Humor

Grant me, O Lord, good digestion,

and also something to digest.

Grant me a healthy body, and

the necessary good humor to maintain it.

Grant me a simple soul that knows to

treasure all that is good and that

doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil,

but rather finds the means to put things

back in their place.

Give me a soul that knows not boredom,

grumblings, sighs and laments,

nor excess of stress, because of that

obstructing thing called “I.”

Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.

Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke

to discover in life a bit of joy,

and to be able to share it with others.

-St. Thomas More, Chancellor ot King Henry VIII

quoted on:  http://eldetail.blogspot.com/2012/02/prayer-for-good-humor.html

For those unfamiliar with Saint Thomas More, one can go to  catholic. Org or read one of the many books written about this man.   For now,  for those who are unfamiliar him I offer the following, very brief introduction.

Saint Thomas More

He attracted the attention of Henry VIII who appointed him to a succession of high posts and missions, and finally made him Lord Chancellor in 1529. However, he resigned in 1532, at the height of his career and reputation, when Henry persisted in holding his own opinions regarding marriage and the supremacy of the Pope. The rest of his life was spent in writing mostly in defense of the Church. In 1534, with his close friend, St. John Fisher, he refused to render allegiance to the King as the Head of the Church of England and was confined to the Tower. Fifteen months later, and nine days after St. John Fisher's execution, he was tried and convicted of treason. He told the court that he could not go against his conscience and wished his judges that "we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to everlasting salvation." And on the scaffold, he told the crowd of spectators that he was dying as "the King's good servant-but God's first." He was beheaded on July 6, 1535. His feast day is June 22nd.

Quoted on Catholic.org


“the grace to be able to take a joke”.  I find this a wise and poignant part of the prayer.    For this this implies that I am secure enough in the love of God and in who I am as a human being to accept the fact that I can be silly, stupid, wise, affectionate, off putting, pompous, humble, and a host of other persons. Sometimes I can be all of these people in the space of a few moments. I am also a person whose mouth opens and utters words and thoughts with seemingly no adult realization that one might want to filter them first.  In other words my humanness is quite intact.   Yet, sometimes, we humans seem to be fearful that “the God of our understanding”  and other humans can only love us if we are perfect. In other words we can only be loved and respected if we are non-human.  This results in taking our behavior and the behavior of others very seriously. When we have difficultly laughing at ourselves we tend to take the behavior of other very seriously.   They in turn then tend to take our behavior very seriously. Soon, if not careful, we are all busy reacting to each other. 

In my experience many of us tend to do the same thing with “the God of our understanding”.  We posit that He/She/It is a very serious and resents us for being what he/she/it designs us to be!   Not only that but “the God of our understanding” has no sense of humor and/or deserts us when we evidence our humanness.

I just  spent time with a dear man who is struggling with un-leanring the belief that when it comes to emotions he is a fragile human being. He has a drama queen episode every time an uncomfortable emotion makes even a cameo appearance. This is a man who has always prided himself on being physically “tough” but who cowers like a tiny ant when fear or some other emotional discomfort visits.   Suddenly this kick ass coal miner is a high pitched, wimpy, little boy. We laugh about this. It is only by lovingly facing these parts of ourselves that we can begin to make the changes we need to make.  We are not little ants (No disrespect meant to the ants of the world. They too are creatures of the divine.)  We can be strong, loving, kick ass people who can lovingly laugh with each other as we help to mirror our ridiculous behavior to/with each other.

Last night I was talking with this very spiritual colleague who is a recovering addict  about his anger at those “addicts” who do not want to get clean and work a recovery program.  He was saying that “their attitude and behavior burns me out.”  Suddenly this man who had just talked about the gift of his recovery despite his long time struggle with relapse,  is  surprised that addicts have a difficult time believing that it is possible to have a post addiction healthy and joyful life. Really!   How silly that we humans get caught in this self righteous, pompous, blaming place.  We puff up like big fish and blow bubbles of anger.  We could beat ourselves up for being so human or we could simply laugh at the fact that  although on the intelligence quotient scale which we humans are very bright, in fact we are, as Pema Chodron says, very stupid.

Last night I had some dear friends.  During the course of dinner we lovingly made fun of each other (none of the 5 of us got off the hook) and of that Jesus fellow.  The God of our understanding has a joyful sense of humor at himself/herself/itself.   There was a time when  everyone in this group was very serious about GOD and religion and would have slugged the person who make a joke about Jesus. Today, everyone in this group is more loving and spiritually healthy than they used to be and have fun with the God of their understanding.  We can laugh with that God about his/her/its stupidity in allowing we humans to take on such important tasks as parenting with no other training that to have fumbling sex one time. Really! That is it!  I mean what was he/she/it thinking?  Obviously when he/she/it should have been paying attention they were envying the Roman Gods for their cavorting with each other.  But what can on do?  One can hardy say, “Okay. That is it!  You, GOD, are staying after class until you learn to pay  attention and come up with some more realistic alternatives.

No more.   Pant, sex, child! Come to think of it God might have to stay after class the at least the entire week.

Mark Twain in his “Letters from the Earth” makes fun of the fact that we humans envision a “heaven” in which we leave out everything we enjoy! This makes no sense at all. Why would we conceive of someplace as paradise which is a drag! Oh yet, he states.  We will all sit around playing the harp and being the sexless, dour virgin aunts and uncles!  Oh boy. Cannot wait for that one!

Growing up in a so called Christian Southern Baptist Church I would have been severely reprimanded and shamed for saying, much less writing the above.  Yet, the very same serious, righteous Christians were sometimes the most unhappy, judgmental people I knew.  They were so busy trying to be good with their serious God that they were often miserable and making everyone else miserable.

All the research supports the theory that laughter is indeed good medicine. I am going to posit that it is good medicine not only for we humans but also for the God of our understanding.