Confessions Of A Secular Humorist

I was coming out of JP’s coffee shop a couple weeks ago and I was thinking about this new group we were starting called Interfaith Congregation. I said to myself, “You know, Willy, if you do this, people are going to accuse you of being a Secular Humorist. No, wait a minute! I mean a Secular Humanist!” Then I thought, “Oh, I’ve got to use that as the title for a talk: Confessions of a Secular Humorist.”

Actually I have two confessions to make. I’m not really secular and I’m not really a humorist. When I say I’m not really secular, what I mean is, I see all things as sacred. I know some people divide up the world between the secular and the sacred. I don’t do that. I see the secular as sacred. So, I suppose if you do that, you’re not really secular. And I’m definitely not a humorist. Mark Twain is a humorist. Dave Barry is a humorist. Garrison Keillor is a humorist. I enjoy humor. I’m a reader of humorists and a watcher of humorists, but I'm not a humorst.

I did dabble in standup comedy many years ago. I took part for a couple years in something called “The Grand Rapids Joke-Off.” It was a competition between media people. I came in second one year. Wow. The second funniest media person in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Whoopee! It was probably good that I didn’t come in first or I would’ve convinced myself that I was a humorist. Although I did MC at a comedy club for a couple weekends. I told a few jokes, did a few impressions. “This is Casey Kasem. Time now for our long distance dedication.” “I’m Andy Rooney. Why is it I can never open a child proof cap? I wonder about that.” “This is Walter Cronkite and that’s the way it is.” I’ve been working on a new impression lately. Susan Boyle. “I dreamed a dream in time gone by.” Maybe I need to keep working on it. We need laughter in our lives. I don’t think you can live your life fully alive without a sense of humor, what the religious call a sense of joy. I think I’ve always had a sense of joy or a sense of humor in my life.

One of my favorite comedians as a kid was Flip Wilson. He told funny stories, as opposed to telling jokes. He told one story about a kid who sold lemonade on his front lawn. His sign said, “Lemonade. All you can drink for a dime.” A guy drives by, stops. He buys a glass of lemonade. He finishes it. He says, “That was very good. I’ll have another glass.” The kid says, “That’ll be another dime.” The guy says, “What do you mean? Your sign says, ‘Lemonade. All you can drink for a dime.’” The kid says, “That’s right, but you had a glass, didn’t you?” The guy says, “Yeah.” The kid says, “Well, that’s all you can drink for a dime.”

I was talking the other night with a guy who likes comedian Emo Phillips. I do, too. We were trading Emo Phillips jokes. I saw Emo Phillips in Grand Rapids many years ago. He told us, “My brother says, ‘Hello,’ so hurray for speech therapy!” He said, “I’ll leave you with the last words of my Grandfather. ‘Oh, a truck.’” He said when he was a kid his parents always told him, “Don’t go near the cellar door.” They told him that for years. “Don’t go near the cellar door.” He said that one day the cellar door was open just a crack, so he pushed it open and walked through. He said, “It was wonderful. I saw things I’d never seen before. Green grass! Blue sky! The sun!”

Jim Gaffigan is one of my favorite comedians today. He’s also an actor and he’s in commercials. But I really like his standup comedy. I saw him on Comedy Central a few months ago. He said, “I’m a vegetarian. But I’m not a strict vegetarian. I also eat chicken. And beef. And pork. But not fish. That’s disgusting!” He said, “I talked with a vegetarian once. He said, ‘I haven’t eaten meat in 5 years.’ Well, I haven’t eaten a banana in a month, but you don’t hear me bragging about it.” We need to laugh. They say it’s good for your health. I think it’s also good for your soul. But not all religious people seem to be able to laugh.

A waiter who knew I was a minister said to me once that a group of Christian men come in for lunch once a week. He said every week they were so serious. They never laughed. They never even cracked a smile. He said, “I thought Christians were supposed to be all about ‘The Good News.’” I said, “I know. But some Christians seem to think that God frowns on laughter. I’m not sure where they get that idea from, but it seems to be what it is that keeps them humorless.”

Before I went to seminary, a friend of mine, who grew up in the Christian Reformed Church, said to me, “Just don’t take the class where they suck all the humor out of you.” I told him that I’d try to avoid that class. I know what he meant. Religious people, like that Christian men’s group, seem extremely depressed. Now, don’t get me wrong, the ministry is sometimes a serious business. You visit people who are dying. You counsel women who've been abused. You do funerals of 16-year-olds who commit suicide. It’s a serious business. But it’s not always serious. You can laugh sometimes.

I gave a talk the other night at the Alliance For Cultural and Ethnic Harmony. Somebody said, “You must have a funny story or two as a liberal guy who attended Western Theological Seminary here in Holland.” I said, I do. I told of the time we were in class and our very serious professor was talking about how the Bible speaks against homosexuality. I raised my hand and pointed out that the Bible also speaks against women preaching in church, but we just ignore those passages today. He basically just ignored me. He continued on about how the Bible speaks against homosexuality. I raised my hand again and pointed out that the Bible speaks in favor of slavery, but we just ignore those passages today. He basically just ignored me again. He then changed subjects and started talking about the environment and how we need to control our population or the world will be severely overcrowded. I raised my hand again and said, “Maybe homosexuality is God’s way of keeping the population down.” Stunned silence. His jaw dropped open for about 10 seconds. Then he started laughing. “Oh, that’s a good one, Mr. Freeman. Ha, ha, ha.” We all need to laugh, even if what someone has said wasn’t totally meant to be funny. But hey, at least I got a very serious professor to laugh.

I googled humor in the Bible. Maybe it’s just me, or maybe some religious people try too hard to find humor where there isn’t any. But one site mentioned that in the Psalms it says, “God laughed.” I looked it up. It says: God laughed at them in derision. Really? That’s humor? Laughing at someone in derision? Sounds more like cruelty to me. They say that what separates humans from animals is that humans have a sense of humor and animals don’t. I’m not so sure. I think the lowest form of humor is laughing at someone in trouble, in pain, suffering. Humans do that. I wonder if animals do that, too. Someone in the south told me they were watching a fawn drinking out of a pond one day. (You probably know what’s coming next. The squeamish might want to cover their ears for the next 15 seconds.) All of a sudden an alligator came up out of the water and bit off one of the fawn’s legs. The fawn struggled for a minute or two, then the alligator came back and pulled it under the water. I wonder if, in that minute or two, the alligator wasn’t chuckling to himself, enjoying the fawn’s suffering. It would make evolutionary sense, I suppose, if what I think is the lowest form of humor in humans is perhaps the highest form of humor in the animal world.

I do believe humor exists among the religious. There are sculptures of a laughing Buddha. And people have paintings of a laughing Jesus. I do believe Jesus laughed. He enjoyed telling stories about parties and attending wedding receptions too much not to have laughed.

I don’t want to get stereotypical here, but Jews are known for their sense of humor. I remember an episode of Seinfeld where a comedian converted to Judaism. Jerry Seinfeld suspected that the guy converted to Judaism just for the jokes. I think some people need more than just converting to Judaism. They have to have a humor implant. Thankfully, though, many people do have a sense of humor.

I think most people know it’s important to laugh. That’s why we have so many options for laughter at the end of the day. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert. David Letterman, Craig Ferguson, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel. They all make me laugh.

I read someplace that Jay Leno may move back into late night. Not enough people are watching his show at 10 o’clock. Maybe people have to watch the 11 o’clock news before they watch comedy, to have a reason to laugh after facing reality. And there’s a lot of reality that we all have to face.

The underwear bomber. The shoe bomber. Wars and rumors of wars. Loved ones die in a war. Loved ones die in a car accident. Loved ones die in a cancer ward. Life’s too short. Life’s too tragic sometimes. That’s why we have to hold on to humor whenever we can. That’s why we have to laugh whenever we can. That’s why we have to chuckle whenever we can. That’s why we have to giggle whenever we can. There is one exception to that.

To get back to the underwear bomber for a second. To thwart terrorists, they’re thinking of putting Full Body Scanners in airports. The scanners allow screeners to see you naked. I assume the scanners will be staffed by both women and men, which is fine. I wouldn’t have a problem going through a Full Body Scanner. I just hope they train the women sufficiently enough so that when I go through and they see me naked they don’t point and giggle.

We all have to laugh sometime. Many people make New Year’s Resolutions. If you’re still looking for one, how about this: Take every opportunity in 2010 to laugh, to chuckle, to giggle - with others, and at yourself sometimes. Who knows? They say laughter is the best medicine, so if there are health benefits to laughter, maybe it’ll help you live longer. Happy New Year!