I was on the phone with my brother the gun nut, er, expert, discussing deer rifles. Hunting deer is not my obsession, but my son has suddenly taken an interest in it, so I thought I’d get something more than the single shot 12 gauge, without rifling, that I used last year. Anyway, the conversation got carried away as usual, and then he told me this unusual thing about a video of two US Army snipers in the first Gulf War. As I have read, in many cases the guy with the gun is accompanied by a spotter who helps identify an enemy, not just to spot him but to make sure he IS an enemy and not just some pistachio farmer.
So the shooter and the spotter scope a guy over a mile away who suffices as an enemy. The shooter has a single-shot bolt action .50 caliber sniper gun with a super scope and tripod for absolute support, and he pulls the trigger on him. “Holy shit!” says the spotter, who is also looking at the ‘kill,’ “that guy just did a flip in the air!” They both laugh. “He looked like a swastika floating in space the way his legs and arms were going. Gimme that gun for the next one. I gotta do that!”
That’s one way to laugh.
Now here’s my favorite joke of all time: What’s round and purple and conquered the world? Alexander the Grape!
OK, maybe it’s in the delivery, but those are two situations, or mind pictures, that elicit laughter, one of a man being spun in the air by an extremely powerful bullet, and the other of an imaginary warrior who could be nothing but comic, even in his armor. One, awful, the other, about as ridiculous and harmless as you can get. Why, then, might both make us laugh?
This goes back to a similar discussion I had on humor many years ago on this blog. It was about fiction writer Robert Heinlein’s definition of humor as something that put other people in submissive or humiliating circumstances. My conclusion was that this was so, but not always so: laughter also came from the unexpected, like the identification in the above joke of the world conqueror with a Greek grape.
After a recent reading, it has occurred to me that there is much more to humor. It concerned a book by an evangelizing Catholic named Mathew Kelly, speaking about his book, I Heard God Laugh. He claims that God is joy and that laughter is also joy, so the two often come together. He claims that the people of old who scribed the Bible perhaps forgot to put down the funny parts. It must have often been hilarious, says Kelly, to be in Jesus’s company, with a man so filled with God’s joy. This mirth must have burst forth regularly. I am not sure about that, but Kelly is certainly right about one thing: the scribes and prophets and apostles who wrote the Bible did not have a sense of humor, so much so that it is nearly impossible imagining Jesus telling a joke about Alexander the Grape.
My guess is that he probably didn’t tell such jokes, and that he certainly didn’t laugh at a more common equivalent of the man being shot with the .50 cal., something we can call the “slippery banana” joke which, considering, isn’t that funny for the guy slipping on the banana – or catching a bullet. But I bet Kelly is right about there being humor while living with Jesus, and not just the subtle stuff
I say this because I believe there is an even better way to lump humor together in all its various forms: that humor comes forth from the recognition of the unknown; that is, it is both a factor of self or human deprecation AND novelty, rolled into one. This would make laughter a potentially powerful ally of God and the spiritual, for in both cases, it demands from even the haughtiest some degree of humility.
There is more to humor than humility, however. In recognizing that we do not know and cannot ever know the universe, we recognize the infinite creativity of God; and in laughing about it, we rejoice at the infinite possibilities of our world and our separate lives. Life, then, can never be a grind; and life can offer infinite possibilities, from eternal heaven to only God knows what. As we rejoice in laughter, we also subtly understand that the weirdness of the universe is, or can be, benign – that its infinite possibilities are directed by a force or forces that just might offer us everything we could ever want, and more.
This is not to deny that laughter is often whistling past the graveyard – that is, laughing to shield us from the terror – but in even that, why would laughter help us, except by confirming through our humorous stoicism that there is hope even in terror? For if there is no hope, would anyone, at least anyone sane, be brave enough to laugh?
However, there might just be a problem here: that is, if humor is based on the recognition of our limitations in an infinite universe, how could God laugh with us? According to Christian ideas, God, including his son, Jesus Christ, is all-knowing. How then can anything be funny?
I think I know how. When we do magic tricks for our kids, or tell them of Santa or read them fairytales that they hear with wide eyes, do we not feel their joy and their wonder? Isn’t this what God would be doing if he laughed? And wouldn’t this be the best sign that God is more love than fear, enjoying our joy of his infinite creativity along with us?
It is a big statement, to say you heard God laugh, but laughter itself is almost as big as God. It can be mean, but it is only mean in a small way for people who are acting small. In its depth, it is our humble recognition that life is WAY over our head, but that we are grateful for so great a challenge, for so great a mystery. In this we voice our belief without words that this universe just might be worthy of our trust.
If God laughs along with us, we know that it is not in the small, mean way, for how could that be possible for something larger than large? Rather, it is the reaction of a creator who takes joy in his creation, who expresses this joy through us and for us. It is the reaction of a creator who walks with us, helping us to grow beyond slapstick to the profound wonder that we were made to share. In its greater form, this is the laughter that is called Awe.
I was on the phone with my brother the gun nut, er, expert, discussing deer rifles. Hunting deer is not my obsession, but my son has suddenly taken an interest in it, so I thought I’d get something more than the single shot 12 gauge, without rifling, that I used last year. Anyway, the conversation got carried away as usual, and then he told me this unusual thing about a video of two US Army snipers in the first Gulf War. As I have read, in many cases the guy with the gun is accompanied by a spotter who helps identify an enemy, not just to spot him but to make sure he IS an enemy and not just some pistachio farmer.
So the shooter and the spotter scope a guy over a mile away who suffices as an enemy. The shooter has a single-shot bolt action .50 caliber sniper gun with a super scope and tripod for absolute support, and he pulls the trigger on him. “Holy shit!” says the spotter, who is also looking at the ‘kill,’ “that guy just did a flip in the air!” They both laugh. “He looked like a swastika floating in space the way his legs and arms were going. Gimme that gun for the next one. I gotta do that!”
That’s one way to laugh.
Now here’s my favorite joke of all time: What’s round and purple and conquered the world? Alexander the Grape!
OK, maybe it’s in the delivery, but those are two situations, or mind pictures, that elicit laughter, one of a man being spun in the air by an extremely powerful bullet, and the other of an imaginary warrior who could be nothing but comic, even in his armor. One, awful, the other, about as ridiculous and harmless as you can get. Why, then, might both make us laugh?
This goes back to a similar discussion I had on humor many years ago on this blog. It was about fiction writer Robert Heinlein’s definition of humor as something that put other people in submissive or humiliating circumstances. My conclusion was that this was so, but not always so: laughter also came from the unexpected, like the identification in the above joke of the world conqueror with a Greek grape.
After a recent reading, it has occurred to me that there is much more to humor. It concerned a book by an evangelizing Catholic named Mathew Kelly, speaking about his book, I Heard God Laugh. He claims that God is joy and that laughter is also joy, so the two often come together. He claims that the people of old who scribed the Bible perhaps forgot to put down the funny parts. It must have often been hilarious, says Kelly, to be in Jesus’s company, with a man so filled with God’s joy. This mirth must have burst forth regularly. I am not sure about that, but Kelly is certainly right about one thing: the scribes and prophets and apostles who wrote the Bible did not have a sense of humor, so much so that it is nearly impossible imagining Jesus telling a joke about Alexander the Grape.
My guess is that he probably didn’t tell such jokes, and that he certainly didn’t laugh at a more common equivalent of the man being shot with the .50 cal., something we can call the “slippery banana” joke which, considering, isn’t that funny for the guy slipping on the banana – or catching a bullet. But I bet Kelly is right about there being humor while living with Jesus, and not just the subtle stuff
I say this because I believe there is an even better way to lump humor together in all its various forms: that humor comes forth from the recognition of the unknown; that is, it is both a factor of self or human deprecation AND novelty, rolled into one. This would make laughter a potentially powerful ally of God and the spiritual, for in both cases, it demands from even the haughtiest some degree of humility.
There is more to humor than humility, however. In recognizing that we do not know and cannot ever know the universe, we recognize the infinite creativity of God; and in laughing about it, we rejoice at the infinite possibilities of our world and our separate lives. Life, then, can never be a grind; and life can offer infinite possibilities, from eternal heaven to only God knows what. As we rejoice in laughter, we also subtly understand that the weirdness of the universe is, or can be, benign – that its infinite possibilities are directed by a force or forces that just might offer us everything we could ever want, and more.
This is not to deny that laughter is often whistling past the graveyard – that is, laughing to shield us from the terror – but in even that, why would laughter help us, except by confirming through our humorous stoicism that there is hope even in terror? For if there is no hope, would anyone, at least anyone sane, be brave enough to laugh?
However, there might just be a problem here: that is, if humor is based on the recognition of our limitations in an infinite universe, how could God laugh with us? According to Christian ideas, God, including his son, Jesus Christ, is all-knowing. How then can anything be funny?
I think I know how. When we do magic tricks for our kids, or tell them of Santa or read them fairytales that they hear with wide eyes, do we not feel their joy and their wonder? Isn’t this what God would be doing if he laughed? And wouldn’t this be the best sign that God is more love than fear, enjoying our joy of his infinite creativity along with us?
It is a big statement, to say you heard God laugh, but laughter itself is almost as big as God. It can be mean, but it is only mean in a small way for people who are acting small. In its depth, it is our humble recognition that life is WAY over our head, but that we are grateful for so great a challenge, for so great a mystery. In this we voice our belief without words that this universe just might be worthy of our trust.
If God laughs along with us, we know that it is not in the small, mean way, for how could that be possible for something larger than large? Rather, it is the reaction of a creator who takes joy in his creation, who expresses this joy through us and for us. It is the reaction of a creator who walks with us, helping us to grow beyond slapstick to the profound wonder that we were made to share. In its greater form, this is the laughter that is called Awe.
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