Will Saunders
Co-Minister
Portsmouth
March 2004

The Right Side

Some years ago, Stefen Jonasson, Large Church Consultant for the Unitarian Universalist Association, offered the opinion that we did not know how to have fun together. He urged us to have more fun. We are doing just that, and I like it. Even Board meetings have been fun recently and working on the Canvass has been fun. We laugh together and we enjoy being together. (Anybody want to join Canvass Committee for a good time?)

The western religious tradition is far too somber and stern for my liking. There is little laughter in the Bible. Rejoicings and songs of praise, yes, but not laughter. This supposed defect may be explained, I think, by the observation that humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer. The relationship between humor and faith is derived from the observation that both deal with incongruity and paradox. We laugh in response to the immediate incongruities of everyday life; faith is our response to the ultimate ones. Both humor and faith derive from our ability to watch ourselves bumble along and to put our bumbling into a larger context. We laugh at the juxtaposition of things which do not fit together, which is most of life. So understood, humor and laughter is the response of health and sanity to the curiosities of life.

Sometimes laughter misses the mark. The ultimate incongruities of life are resolved only by faith. In ultimate matters, reason does not work, for reason looks from only one standpoint and is unable to address the very incongruities it seeks to resolve. Sometimes circumstances are too profound to be resolved with laughter. We laugh at the incongruities on the surface of life, but if we have no other resource than humor to deal with those which reach below the surface, our laughter reveals our sense of the meaninglessness of life. Laughter against evil is bitter. Bitter laughter of derision may be useful as an instrument of condemnation. But there is no power in it to deter the evil against which it is directed. The efficacy of humor is limited to preserving the dignity of the slave against his master. But laughter did little to further the destruction of slavery, or Nazism, or any other horrible evil.

To meet the disappointments and frustrations of life with laughter is a high form of wisdom. Such laughter does not obscure or defy the incongruities, but it does allow us to yield to inevitability without too much friction or emotion. A humorous acceptance of fate represents a form of self-detachment. It almost feels Buddhist. Insofar as the sense of humor and fun and laughter is a recognition of life’s absurdities and curiosities, it is more profound than any philosophy which seeks to devour incongruity in reason. But the sense of humor remains healthy only when it deals with immediate issues and faces the obvious and surface irrationalities. It must move toward faith or sink into despair when ultimate issues are raised.

I take it as a good thing that we are having fun together, that we are laughing together, that a new sense of playfulness is seeping into our faith community. Life need not be somber and stern, though it is true that serious matters demand serious attention. The trick is to know when to play and when to pray. Faith is the final triumph over incongruity. Faith is the final assertion of our freedom. May our faith community continue to know the place and the importance of fun and laughter. See you in church…