When I was a 23 someone who knew me as a child and teen, approached my girlfriend. He asked her what had happened to me saying “He used to always have a smile on his face. Now he is so serious.” When she told me what he said, it was a wake up call.
I sought professional help and was diagnosed with SMS. SMS has been compared to PMS, but it’s much worse. It’s a horrible life- threatening disease known as Serious Men’s Syndrome. Its acute form, aka deadly serious men’s syndrome is accompanied by chronic hostility, and a desire to kill. Those who come in contact with the carrier of this disease often are infected with a desire to harm, kill or get away from the carrier.
Even milder cases of SMS can drain the pleasure out of living. I had experienced a symptom called excessive situational gravity, and it really brought me down. My physician, Dr. Funnybone prescribed anti-gravity techniques. “Less than 14 laughs a day is a sign of the disease raging.”, she said. “and merits a laughsative* to ensure regular laughing.
This and other treatments have helped me to find a recovery from SMS. Learning to lighten up is just like any other skill. If you set out to do it, and you keep moving in that direction, you get better. This is something I had learned in college. In my first year and a half of college, I experience college induced lack of physical fitness. During that time, my only exercise was beer pong. When I attempted to do sit ups and push ups, I could do only two sit-ups, and five push-ups. I persisted, …in private to avoid humiliation. After a couple days, I could do three sit-ups, then four, six, and eight. Before long I was doing a decent number of sit-ups and push-ups.
I applied this same principle in recovery from SMS. I kept looking for opportunities to cut up, let loose, play, and be silly. Soon I became a playful and humorous person. Today, I don’t force myself to be playful all the time, but I know that to escape deadly seriousness, I need to exercise my sense of humor.
Do you know why angels can fly? They can fly because they take themselves lightly.
Fortunately elightenUPment feels good. Research shows that when we belly laugh, our body produces endorphins. Laughing reduces stress and has tremendous health benefits!
Am I out of line joking about conditions that generally get treated by the mental health system? Am I implying that the cure for depression is pulling yourself up by your boot straps. Absolutely not!
What does it take to pull an individual out of the depths of despair? How about enlightening up a nation? What will it take to raise all of humanity out of despair? Global warming, oppression and social ills have led many to anxiety and despair. EnlightenUPment may be necessary to ensure human survival.
Unitarian Universalism aims to bring about the Beloved Community. We create an environment where people learn that they don’t have to think alike in order to love alike. Our acceptance and encouragement to spiritual growth enables us to examine and learn from Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Native American and other religious traditions. We also acknowledge that religious institutions have also perpetuated many harmful and oppressive thoughts and practices. Perhaps the most important belief system for us to examine is the one operating inside of us! We can ask ourselves: what am I believing right now? And does this belief support a spirituality of interdependence and reverence for the web of existence? Do our beliefs help us create peace? Justice? Joy? Does it help us to see beauty all around us? Does it serve us in fulfilling a higher purpose?
Sometimes I think that the monotheistic religions worship a god who suffers from SMS. Did you ever notice how when people are telling a story or joke, and it comes to the part where God speaks, the person telling the story or joke uses a deep booming serious male voice.
Here’s an example:
Joe was hired to paint the church. He was short on money and decided to thin the paint with water. As soon as he finished the job, clouds appeared and rain poured down upon the church. The paint began washing away. Then a voice came from the heavens and said: “Joe, repent and thin no more!”
Albert Schweitzer suggested in his book The Historic Jesus, “Man created God in his own image.” How about that song: “our god is a bossy God, he reigns from heaven above?!” What’s that? “our god is an awesome god.” Oh sorry. My bad.
Whether we come from Jewish, Christian, atheist or agnostic families, we inherited some limiting beliefs. Being raised Jewish in the shadow of the holocaust, I and my fellow Jews received a very serious message; that it was on our shoulders to ensure Jewish survival.
Fortunately, God breathed life into my tribe. It happened not so much in the religious institutions as it did in the entertainment industry. There came a parade of Jewish comedians. The Marx Brothers, Sid Ceaser, Milton Berle, Buddy Hacket, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Jerry Lewis, Henny Youngman, Jack Benny, Victor Borge, Phil Silvers, Danny Kaye, Tom Lehrer, and that’s just from my childhood. As you know this parade continued. And I’ll tell you, buballa, if we didn’t learn to laugh, we would never have made it this far.
Christianity adopted one serious Jew. Jesus was consistently portrayed with the same pious face (makes face). Whether healing the sick, turning water to wine, preaching to the mass, same face. (makes face). In 1985 in a little shop in San Francisco, I finally saw something different. In his 1979 sketching, “Laughing Jesus,” Willis Wheatly gave the world a picture of Jesus enjoying a roaring belly laugh.
I loved it, and was surprised that not everyone shared my enthusiasm for it. Some said it was in bad taste. Some called it sacrilegious. What does that say about people’s concept of God and their attitude about laughter?
Deadly serious religion in America goes back to the Puritans. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination ruled the day. In 1741 John Edwards gave his famous sermon “Sinners in the hands of an angry god.” However there soon grew upon this continent a spirit of optimism that led to the Unitarian and Universalist movements. Americans became known for confidence and ingenuity.
In the mid 19th century, Transcendentalism arose largely as a Unitarian movement. Unitarian Minister Ralph Waldo Emerson studied the Bahagavad Gita and it opened him and us to a multicultural approach to faith development. Hindu religion has stories of the mischievous Lord Krishna stealing butter cookies. Religious art depicts him flocked by servant girls. These depictions of divinity invited us to enlighten UP!
Transcendentalists found communion with G*d in nature. This helped us develop appreciation for Native American spirituality. Many native stories feature Trickster, a divine influence that confounds human understanding. The stories express that sometimes we feel like we are at the mercy of a random if not cruel world. One story tells that Coyote had a sack full of stars that he was supposed to place in the sky, at first he did a good job placing the stars in neat rows, but soon he got bored and restless. He finally tossed all the remaining stars into the sky.
I have deep appreciation of the humility, humor, and playfulness in this Native American approach to the sacred. Native cultures appreciate the puniness of human capacity to grasp the vast landscape of existence.
Many Native ceremonies have a sacred role for clowns, fools or tricksters. The Heyoka or contrarian of the tribes of the Plains is a good example. Heyokas are revered spiritual leaders that are expected to break with the traditional norms of the tribe. During times of ceremony, Heyokas tell funny stories that relax the tribe and prepare them for the intense concentration that was required for the ritual. Black Elk is perhaps the best known of Heyokas.
In the book Compassionate Laughter, Patty Wooten tells of Zuni clown kachinas. A Newekwe is a Zuni clown kachina. Newekwes belong to a healing society and must have been cured of a stomach ailment by a Newekwe clown. According to Zuni belief, worry resides in the stomach and is the primary cause of illness. Before their performances, the clowns are reminded by their leaders to “make your mind blank” and “go out there with a happy heart, a heart free from worry and help the people.”
Reverence for enlightenUPment can also be found in Western traditions. A rabbi was visited by a very poor man, Mendel who complained of the crowded conditions of his home. Mendel lived in a tiny one-room house with his wife, six children and mother-in-law. The rabbi inquired if Mendel had any animals. Oh yes, I have chickens and a goat.” The rabbi told the Mendel to bring the goat inside to live with him. After a week, Mendel returned to the rabbi complaining that the situation was even worse than before. The rabbi instructed Mendel to return home and bring the chickens into the house to live with him. Mendel objected but did as he was told. A week later he came back to the rabbi protesting that now his situation was worse than ever, and he was going crazy. The rabbi told him to return home and take the goat and chickens out of the house. A few days later, Mendel came back smiling and grateful, saying “Rabbi, my house is now so spacious and peaceful! You are certainly the wisest man who ever lived!
April Fool’s day has its origin in a folk holiday, the Feast of Fools.” During the 12th through 16th century, the Catholic Church was powerful and serious. During the feast of fools, lesser clergy would (and I quote Patty Wooten) “engage in outrageous and blasphemous behavior” “usurp the roles of their superiors” wear sacramental robes inside out, hold their prayer books upside down, …burn stinking incense made from the soles of their shoes.”
In the Middle Ages, jesters were the only ones permitted to criticize the king. The Jester’s job was to get the king and his court to laugh. By playing the fool, the jester could have influence beyond that of noblemen.
Foolery, jest, and madness can be used to equalize power. It can help oppressed people find reason to continue a struggle. It can be used to heal and make people aware of their unity and common humanity. It can be used to relieve stress. EnlightenUPment happens when we can look at a situation in a new way.
The wise fool, the divine trickster, and the healing clown use the power of humor for sacred healing purposes. Moishe Waldoks referred to this power when he said: “a sense of humor can help you overlook the unattractive, tolerate the unpleasant, cope with the unexpected and smile through the unbearable.” Mark Twain put it this way: “the human race has only one really effective weapon. And that’s laugher. The moment it arises, all our harnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.”
The wise fool uses irreverence with reverence. A jester can snap us out of our illusions and free us from the prison of our mind. She awakens us to beauty even in the most trying of times. Arina Issacson said: “people tell me that they feel so much more available to life once they learn to clown around. That’s what being a clown is about … it’s about touching your soul and finally giving it room to laugh.
Have I enticed you to seek a path of enlightenUPment? Can this congregation hold as sacred, the wisdom of the fool? … We can be healers, and in our desire to serve people through love and happiness, we can clear our hearts of worry. Like all spiritual paths, it’s not about being perfect. It’s about learning to play with our imperfection. We can have irreverence and reverence. We can touch souls and finally give them room to laugh.
Blessed Be. Amen and Ashe’
“EnlightenUPment,Laughsative,” other word plays and jokes stolen from Swami Beyondanana
https://wakeuplaughing.com/
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