{"id":40,"date":"2012-04-14T01:14:39","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T01:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/?p=40"},"modified":"2012-04-14T01:14:39","modified_gmt":"2012-04-14T01:14:39","slug":"in-celebration-of-laughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/?p=40","title":{"rendered":"In Celebration of Laughter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>I remember as a child going to the Washington Zoo, and laughing at the monkeys\u2019 antics. \u00a0My mother turned to me and said \u201cAnyone who thinks God doesn\u2019t have a sense of humor has never watched monkeys for very long.\u201d \u00a0My Dad laughed and said, \u201cOr people, either!\u201d
 
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This coming Sunday we will celebrate “Holy Hilarity” Sunday at my church — a great idea that reaches back to a very old Orthodox tradition of gathering to tell jokes after Easter. \u00a0The modern repackaging of the idea comes from Cal Samra, the founder of the Fellowship of Merry Christians, a group that has long promoted the healing spiritual power of laughter.\n<\/div>\n

 
Sadly, there has always been a segment of the religious world that has been deceived into thinking of God only as a humorless, grim taskmaster, a group that only allows solemn and serious representations of Jesus. \u00a0These folks seem to believe in a God that is modeled more on an abusive parent than the God of the Bible! \u00a0But this is the Savior who turned water into wine, who made fun of the Pharisees: \u201cYou who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!\u201d \u00a0This is the God who named Abraham’s son “Laughter!”<\/div>\n

Laughter is good for you, it\u2019s a gift of God. \u00a0Scientific research has proved in recent years that a good belly laugh creates all kinds of healthful benefits, affirming the writer of Proverbs: \u201cA joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.\u201d \u00a0The best laughter, both spiritually and mentally, is when we can laugh at ourselves. \u00a0That\u2019s when we can accept our foibles, our human weaknesses and see the funny side of them rather than letting guilt and remorse \u201cdry up our bones.\u201d \u00a0I can\u2019t be around humorless people too long, for they seem to suck some of the oxygen out of the air and the Spirit out of life.
 
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\"Bruce<\/a>
Bruce Harrison<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The laughter of bullies, the laughter which seeks to make fun at others\u2019 expense, is not the laughter we\u2019re talking about. \u00a0It is the contagious laughter of joy, the rejoicing of a happy heart bubbling forth. \u00a0This laughter happens best when we are together, when we are in a group of friends whom we trust and care about \u2013 that should tell us something! \u00a0We don\u2019t laugh at God, we laugh instead at ourselves when we are foolish and we laugh with joy at the wonderful things that God has given us. \u00a0If we take ourselves too seriously, if we take the human side of our institution to seriously, then we are in grave danger of not taking God seriously enough!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One person who loved this tradition was Bruce Harrison. \u00a0Bruce showed up every Sunday with a new joke, always and without fail. \u00a0He refused to let a stroke destroy his sense of humor or his enjoyment of a good joke. \u00a0Or a bad pun, either! \u00a0Bruce is one we all miss.
 
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\"Jeanne<\/a>
Jeanne Carter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another whom we miss is Jeanne Carter, who passed into the more immediate presence of the Savior last year. \u00a0Jeanne was dying of advanced COPD, struggling for every breath — but still she loved to laugh! \u00a0During the last weeks of her life, she had been bedridden in the care of our local hospice. \u00a0But she was not going to miss Holy Hilarity Sunday, even if it was the last thing she did. \u00a0She called her doctor, and told him in no uncertain terms that he had to make whatever arrangements were needed for her to be at church one last time — and it had<\/em> to be on Holy Hilarity Sunday. \u00a0And when the organ prelude began, (a variation on the Looney Tunes theme) there she was, seated in her regular pew — albeit in pajamas and with her oxygen mask — but she was there, and she enjoyed the bejeebers out of the jokes. \u00a0It was the last thing that she was able to do outside of hospice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I hope you have fond memories of some people like Jeanne and Bruce who have brought laughter and joy into your life. \u00a0The best thing we can do in their memory is tell a good joke or a bad pun, and enjoy a belly laugh in their honor!<\/div>\n
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Listen to the Trinity Moravian Choir’s anthem for Holy Hilarity Sunday 2009 – “In Praise of Coffee!”
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For more information on Holy Humor Sunday, visit\u00a0http:\/\/www.joyfulnoiseletter.com\/hhsunday.asp<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember as a child going to the Washington Zoo, and laughing at the monkeys\u2019 antics. \u00a0My mother turned to me and said \u201cAnyone who thinks God doesn\u2019t have a sense of humor has never watched monkeys for very long.\u201d \u00a0My Dad laughed and said, \u201cOr people, either!\u201d  This coming Sunday we will celebrate “Holy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor","category-just-fun","category-uncategorized","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.johnjackman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}