Joy, humor and laughter should be a part of everyone's spiritual life.  They are gifts from God, and they help us enjoy God's creation.  A good laugh is a sign of love.

11) Humor is Fun
Have you heard this story about Franz Schubert? A long time ago he sat down and played a new composition for a friend.  Afterward the friend said, "But what does it mean?" Schubert sat down, played the piece again, and said, "That's what it means!"  Joy, humor, and laughter are their own rewards.  

Isn't that a lovely idea?  God gives us humor as an outright gift! Fun - a word you don't hear talked about or done too much in some churches - is a foretaste of heaven.  

After all, shouldn't the message of the gospel result in joy?  God loves us, forgives us, and He saves us from ourselves.  This isn't about dogma and sadness.  It's about freedom and joy.  We should respond as Sarah responded to the news of a newborn coming - with laughter.  If God can forgive me, then the least I can do is respond with gratitude and joy.  

Many people throughout history understood this.  The man whose first miracle was to turn water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana understood the need for high spirits in life.

11 1/2) Humor is Often Practical
This half reason has nothing to do with spirituality and everything to do with practicality.  Here is a story that bears witness to this.

A man was speeding down the highway, late for an appointment.  He knew it was the last day of the month, the time when the police were eager to make their monthly "quota" of citations for parking tickets, but he did it anyway.  Sure enough, he saw a flashing red light in his rearview mirror.  The man sighed and pulled over.  

The officer strode up to the car and waved for the man to role down his window, "I've been waiting for you all day!" said the pleased officer.  "Well," said the man, "I got here as fast as I could!"  The officer laughed so hard that he didn't give the man a ticket.  

Sometimes humor can save you money!

Loved this! Has a child ever stumped you with a great question?

Another week has gone by.  I was tired this week, but I laughed a lot! Students are great in creating humor in the classroom.  The highlight this week was a freshmen who asked me, "When was your first kiss?"  This, of course, was his idea of making get-to-know questions a little more interesting! It make the whole class crack up and brings me to another important point on humor.

9) Humor Fosters Good Relations and Builds Community
Humor and community are intimately linked.  In an intuitive way, we get the feeling that jokes are enjoyed only in the company of friends.  We tell them at school, at work, and at home.  They demonstrate intimacy trust, and sense or togetherness among those those who tell jokes and listen to them.  Thus, one of the important elements of humor is the intimate connection it fosters among the members of a community.  Through jokes we also show our affection for the people who are most important in our lives.  By joking with people we are, in effect, taking care of them and simultaneously telling them that we love them.  And in inviting more people to share the same joke, our community expands and becomes more open to the presence of others.

Jokes can affirm a group's identity and, at the same time, make that community far richer.  Yet the important of humor extends farther.  Jokes and humor may also be viewed as evidence of the changes that occur in the community over time.  They point to a shared history, a common past that consists of a litany of dangers, trials, and occasional bouts of real suffering and genuine hardship.  Humor does more than "take the edge off" these rough times.  It literally reverses the sentiment of despair into its opposite: hope.  Humor performs the Janus task of looking backwards and forwards at the same time.  It recalls the past, and it sets it squarely before us.  Humor, the language of hope and joy, turns our eyes more resolutely toward the future.  By telling a joke, we affirm that our relationships are vitally healthy and ongoing, and thus open to change, to development, to continual deepening - in short, jokes open our lives and our communities to God.

10) Humor Opens Our Minds
 Laughing releases endorphins, which helps us to relax.  When we relax and feel less threatened, we more able to listen and to lear.  By relaxing listeners, laughters can help get a message across.  And, it may help us think more broadly or creatively. It may even give us spiritual insight like in the following story.

A pastor is giving spiritual direction to an older man who was practical, hardworking, and efficient.  He was getting older, and he was becoming frustrated.  As aging slowed him down, he felt less "productive."  A big part of the problem, both in prayer and daily life, was an overemphasis on "results."

The pastor asked the older man to pray using the image of Jesus as a young man between the ages of twelve and thirty, before he started his public ministry.  During those years, as far as is know, Jesus was not preaching or performing miracles.  He was simply working in a carpentry shop, plying his trade and living a simple life.

At one point, as the older man imagined watching Jesus working in his carpentry shop, he found himself saying to Jesus, "Why don't you start healing people now?  You're wasting all this time!  You're not very efficient!"

When he recounted this to the pastor, the pastor said, "You told Jesus that he wasn't productive?" The older man smiled and began to laugh.  That moment let him relax, pray in a more relaxed way and led him to see himself and others as a "human being" not a "human doing."

Laughter can be a sign of being freed from old ways of thinking, from being bound to old habits.  It was a sign of God's liberation.

Another semester has begun.  The first year students are anxious, the second year students are enjoying friendships from last year, the third year students are thinking, 'Here we go again!?!', and the fourth year students are wondering about the future.  It's always good to put students at ease with a joke.  This is the next point on this list of why humor is important.

7) Humor Welcomes
Have you ever noticed that humor is a unique way of showing hospitality?  Perhaps the easiest way to get people to feel at home is to make them laugh.  You know that a social gathering is going well, and that people feel at home when laughter breaks out.  Humor helps people relax, to feel comfortable, to let down their guard.  Laughing with others tells them that you enjoy their presence.  Humor welcomes!

8) Humor is Healing
Physicians, psychologist, and psychiatrists have show how laughter helps the healing process.  Laughter releases endorphins, powerful chemicals that relax the body, reduce stress, relieve feelings of frustration, and produce an overall feeling of well being.  Jordan Friedman, a professional "stress reducer" who lives in New York, wrote The Stress Manager's Manual.  "Humor and laughter are potent and plentiful stress reducers and spirit boosters, because they simultaneously help us physically and emotionally. Laughter strengthens the immune function, decreases muscle tension, and increases our tolerance for pain.  Humor breaks negative thought cycles and release feelings of anxiety, sadness, and fear."  

Humor may heal bodies in another way.  If Christians take seriously St. Paul's beautiful image of the church as the body of Christ we can consider that the same hold true for the Christian community.  In the midst of some difficult times, people could use some laughter from time to time.

An elderly woman, a "wonderful lady", had a husband who was living with Alzheimer's.  When one member of a couple suffers from this illness, it is always a difficult situation for the spouse. This "wonderful lady" was able to share a funny story with fellow church members and it shows her ability to recognize humor admidst pain.  

The woman said her husband had reached the point where he was unable to recognize her.  One day she visited him in the nursing home and asked, "Do you know who I am?"

Her husband said, "You're my wife."

She was delighted that he had remembered.

Then he pointed to the nurses' station and said. "And I've got four more over there!"

When her pastor tells this story he is always tells people that his mother also had Alzheimer's, so that others know that he is not trying to make light of anything.  His lesson from this story is this.  If a person in the midst of tragedy could tell a funny story that helps them, then it helps him too!

As I continue this little series on humor, I am reminded of the beauty of laughter.  My three year old son went into peals of laughter as I was trying to put him to bed.  "Tuck, tuck," is a tradition that has been handed down over a few generations.  I usually can tuck the blankets in around him until he looks a little like a caterpillar in a cocoon.  Tonight he had the giggles.  Every time I touched him, he would get this wide smile on his face. "Mommy, you're tickling me." What fun it was to put him to bed tonight.

5) Humor shows courage
St. Lawrence showed his courage to his torturers during his martyrdom by saying, "I'm done on this side." It was both a pointed challenge to his executioners and a bold profession of faith.  Similarly, in the 16th century St. Thomas more, the onetime chancellor of England who had refused to accede to King Henry's requests to recognize the king's divorce, was sentenced to death. As he climbed the steps to his beheading, he said to his executioner, "See me safe up; for in my coming down I can shift for myself." This type of wit shows profound courage and conveys deep theological truth.  It says, "I do not fear death," and "I believe in God." It points to something beyond this world.  It is a kind of prophetic humor.

6) Humor deepens our relationship with God
One of the best ways of thinking about a relationship with God is a close, personal relationship or an intimate friendship.  In that light, our relationship to God - like any relationship - can use humor from time to time.  It's okay to be playful with God and accept the idea that God may want to be playful with us.
In Jewish tradition, there is the notion of a playful or loving God.  Many rabbis tell the story of God braiding Eve's hair in the garden, like someone who would help a bride. This is a charming and playful image of a loving God.

I hope this makes you smile. I am continuing with a short and not so serious series on humor and happiness after a much needed vacation. And, yes, I laughed out loud a lot on my vacation.  And it was in Bali.  Here are the next two ways that humor works in the spiritual life.

3) Humor can help us recognize reality
It can get right to the point, and it puts things in perspective.  “Preach the gospel at all times.  Use words when necessary.” (St. Francis of Assisi). That’s clever and even funny, and it’s also a profound truth.

Jesus often silenced his opponents with clever answers and humorous retorts.  When he was asked whether his followers should pay the tradition Roman tax, he had a zinger.  His opponents were aiming to set up a trap.  If he said yes, he would have been encouraging his fellow Jews to accept the Romans overlords.  If he said no, he would have been guilty of sedition.  So he simply said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's." It isn't too hard to imagine his onlookers smiling at this clever response and his opponents realizing that he had escaped their trap.

Humor - an amusing saying, a clever response, or a funny story - can be effective for truth telling where a lengthy argument or discussion simply cannot.  "Humor makes every message stick, whether it's the silly ad that you never forget of the joke that hammers home some important spiritual truth." (Margaret Silf)

4) Humor speaks truth to power  
A witty remark is a time honored way to challenge the puffed up, the pompous, and the powerful.  Jesus was a master at deploying humor, exposing and defusing the arrogance of the some of the religious authorities of his day with clever parables and amusing sallies. 

Here is a story that humor is a weapon in the battle against the pride that infects most of us and often infects our religious communities.  A friend's mother was in the hospital at the same time the local bishop was.  After his operation, the bishop went around room to room visiting all the patients.  When he visited my friend's mother, who was recovering from a difficult surgery, he said, unctuously, "Well dear, I know exactly how you feel."

And she replied, "Really? Did you have a hysterectomy too?"

The mother and the bishop became friends.  After she died, the bishop was invited to preside at her funeral, and he retold the story.  He had learned to take himself not so seriously.

The recording of God's gifts over the last year has me thinking about happiness and the paths toward it.  Sometimes the path to happiness is humor or a good laugh.

The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible says there is a time to weep, a time to mourn, and a time to laugh.  Sometimes laughter can be healthy in the midst of sadness - as a way of lightening a heavy heart.

Here is a cute story from a book I have been reading that illustrates this point. A few years ago the regional superior of the Jesuits in New York City was visiting the infirmary, where the sick and elderly priests and elders live.  The superior was talking about how the Jesuits in the area were getting older and older.  "We have so many aging Jesuits", said the superior, "that there really isn't any place to put them.  There isn't even room for anyone else here in the infirmary." To which an elderly Jesuit shouted out, "Father, we're dying as fast as we can!"

Silly humor, as in this example, can sometimes help lighten sad situations. But it can deepen a person's spiritual life in a variety of other equally important ways.  Over the next month I will look at 11 1/2 reasons for humor in the spiritual life.

1.  Humor evangelizes
Joy, humor, and laughter show one's faith in God.  Joy draws others to God.  To paraphrase Saint Teresa, why hide it?

Many years ago, I asked a dear friend and committed Christian named Derek Liebenberg what he thought was the best way to get people to come to faith.  His answer surprised and inspired me.  He said, "Live your own life joyfully."

Isn't that good advice.  Joy attracts people to God.  Why would anyone want to join a group of miserable people? A better way of expressing this came from Timothy M. Dalan, after his appointment to archbishop of New York in 2009.  A New York Times reporter asked him about the declining number of vocations to the Catholic priesthood and wondered about his approach to the problem.  Archbishop Dolan's answer: "Happiness attracts."

2. Humor is a tool for humility
We can tell jokes about ourselves to deflate our egos.  This is important for those working in an official capacity in a religious institutions, where it's easy to get puffed up.  It goes for those in silk robes who are called "Your eminence." It goes for priests, brothers, and sisters whom others think are holy because they are ordained or are in a religious order.  It goes for preachers or rabbis whom others revere because they can recall verses of Scripture effortlessly.  It goes for lay people in parishes, schools, and hospitals, who exercise a great deal of power over people's spiritual lives.  Frankly, it goes for everyone.

Anyone can get puffed up, and humor is a good way for people to remind themselves of their basic humanity, their essential poverty of spirit.  It brings us back down to earth and reminds us of our place in God's universe.  "Angels can fly," write G.K. Chesteron, "because they can take themselves lightly."

An overriding theme in the book The Wit of Martin Luther is how Luther used humor to remind himself of the limitations of human knowledge where it comes to God.  "Humor was for Luther," writes the Luther scholar Eric Gritsch, "the guard to prevent him from crossing the frontier to speculations about God and human life beyond its earthly existence." Humor served as a reminder of his own humanity and humility.