Saturday, March 18, 2006

Humor Knows Its Place -- Everywhere

ChaliceChick had a great post about humor. And you know, I could use a little humor right now. Before All Of This, I was quite into humor. Loved doing an annual humor service at my home church.

Well, actually, I still love humor, and it's amazing how you can find it in even the more dire circumstances. Like when my great-aunt died, and even though she had crossed every t and dotted every i, my dad still had to fax papers back and forth and sign things. It was capped off by the 25 page document he had to sign to get her body cremated. One of the many items in that document stated, that "I understand that this process is irreversible."

What??? said my father. "No, I figured I could just add some water and reconstitute her!"

Or at 11:30 pm, the night that Little Warrior came out of a 9 hour surgical biopsy that was supposed to be 3 hours ... we were in the recovery area and the pulmonologist wandered by. We noted that her breathing was a little rough. "Well, sure, you should expect that when you remove the top half of her right lung." Little Warrior was supposed to get biopsies of her *kidneys.* The Husband and I both began gasping for air. "Oh!" said the pulmonologist. "Not her! That little girl over there! Sorry!"

So, in the spirit of "I need a laugh" ... some of my favorite UU jokes. (Which do not include any of the "we have no raison d'etre" jokes.)

Why are UU congregations so bad at hymn singing?

Because they are always reading a few lines ahead to see if they agree with the words.

You may be a Unitarian Universalist if you think socks are too formal for a Summer service.

You may be a Unitarian Universalist if you know at least 5 ways to say - Happy holidays!

You may be a Unitarian Universalist if your idea of a guy's night out is going to a N.O.W. rally.

You may be a Unitarian Universalist if unleavened bread is part of your Easter Brunch.

You may be a Unitarian Universalist if you refer to construction paper as "paper of color."

If you find yourself rewriting a church survey, rather than taking it, you might be a UU.

If you call up your minister in the middle of the night, panicking because you are STARTING to believe in God, you might be a UU.

If, to explain your personal theology, you have to use interpretive dance, you might be a UU.

You may be a Unitarian Universalist if you take your day planner to church instead of the Bible.

Not always true, but still funny ... especially for those of us who have taken a very-Christian-not-UU person to church:

Fellow goes to a UU service for the first time, and later is asked what he thought of it. "Darndest church I ever went to," he replies, "the only time I heard the name of Jesus Christ was when the janitor fell down the stairs."

And to end, a great Dostoyevsky quote:

"If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know the man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, or seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you'll get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man...All I claim to know is that laughter is the most reliable gauge of human nature."

Of course, anyone who laughs at Gallagher, I regard with a high degree of suspicion. But I consider "Better Off Dead" to be one of the funniest movies ever made. And my parents think the same of "The Coca-Cola Kid," which left me and The Husband scratching our heads. What can I say, humor is subjective.

1 comment:

PeaceBang said...

I'm so glad you left a comment on PeaceBang so that I could now know that you're out there and laugh and pray with you.
That thing about reconstituting your great aunt is f-ing HILARIOUS!
I will be quoting him in the future.

After my father died my sister and I were sitting around tearfully and she was being maudlin and saying, "If I have a son I'm going to name him after Dad" (whose name was Carl) and I said, "Oh, you mean Sandy?" And we both howled with laughter.

In our family "The Producers" is the funniest movie ever made. It's not for everyone but maybe it will work for you too. If not, I have a million other recommendations.

Blessings, Mama.