I was sitting on a Boeing 767 on the return journey to Heathrow from Toronto. The airline was showing the film “Patch Adams” about a doctor who made people laugh. He argued that laughter increased the positive antibodies that fight disease. He was denied his qualification by the hospital where he was studying because he upset their ‘tradition’ so he appealed to the medical board, won his case and was awarded his degree. The postscript to the film was there were at least 1,000 doctors waiting to be employed at his clinic.
Humour is good for you, but at times can be misunderstood. We have a multicultural society where often harmless raillery can be misread. The Americans tell jokes about the Poles, the English about the Irish, the Australians about the English and the Jews about themselves. At the present rate of law-making they will even ban the Jews joking about themselves!
English humour is sarcastic and self-deprecating, and many nations fail to perceive the cutting edge of their jokes, and are sometimes offended. In fact, the situation has got out of hand, so that now we have to be politically correct, because innocuous jokes of yesteryear are now viewed by some as having racist undertones.
I noticed a joke book in my library that I hadn’t read for years and thought I’d use one in this article, but hesitated to quote the source in case I was accused of being racial. Isn’t that sad? Here it is anyhow without the title of the book – “a housewife took the clothesline she bought back to the shop because the garden wasn’t long enough!”
I am sure God is not straight-laced but has a sense of humour. I can imagine the disciples sitting with Jesus around an evening fire swapping stories and making quips, especially about themselves. In fact God MUST have a sense of humour he made me – and YOU. What does a new translation of the psalms say? “Bring the gift of laughter and come into His presence.”
Learn to laugh at yourself, don’t get uptight about suspect undertones, which aren’t there, and give as good as you get. Encourage others to laugh with you and at you and loose yourself from an unhealthy preoccupation with seriousness that borders on depression and an unwholesome introspection.
We are told that modern counselling is doing more harm than good for it centres people on themselves, their short-comings, their disabilities, their sicknesses. We now have neurotic children, for their parents are forever trying to ascertain faults that need correcting by professional analysis – why not just live with what they are – did God make a mistake?
When the misnamed Toronto Blessing (Really, the Father’s Blessing) was at its height there was laughter, some good some bad, but in it all counselling dropped to a minimum; pastors were delighted that their diaries were empty, and they actually had time to pray, read and think, instead of being besieged by worried depressed people in their churches demanding therapy.
In fact, a pastor’s life is usually dominated by people demanding attention, how blessed then to see their flock living on their own without their hands being held continuously. When I was a lecturer I assembled with many other such professionals from all walks and disciplines of life, and very rarely did they ever highlight their problems. It was refreshing, but what a difference when I became a full-time minister, all I ever heard was problems, problems, problems – I wondered where God was in many lives!
In a recent article it was stated that psychiatrists have come to the conclusion that the English ‘stiff upper lip’ is good for you, for it develops backbone. An inner strength is matured in lives, thus giving people the ability to weather the storms and difficulties in life with a smile, stoical though it may be, if you like, to laugh at our troubles.
Trials will come because even as sparks fly upwards man is born to trouble, nothing is perfect; we soon learn that, or should learn that, so we live with lesser things, and learn to enjoy them. The modern trend is to write laws so that we all live right which is bewildering to the current generation; there is no room for failure which is part of life. Children are barred from competition lest they lose, and mundane actives are banned lest accidents occur, accidents will always occur and out of that situation and our positive response strength of character is developed.
