Have you heard the one about…

via Heard

Humor is like craft beer and fine wine, not everyone likes the same vintage.  I once heard a young man say, “Man, I’m glad I’m not a cow.” Upon arriving at the ball, I once heard a man say to his golfing partner, who had hit a particularly short drive just slight of the center of the fairway but not very long off the tee box, “Found it!”  Have you heard the one about the nostalgic older woman who said, “Whenever I think about the past, it brings back so many memories.”  duh!  Or the favorite three year-old knock knock joke,

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting chicken.
Interrupting ch…
Bok!!!!!!!

See what I mean?  I wonder if there is anyone my age that hasn’t read “Laughter is the best medicine” in Reader’s Digest.  The first one to coin this expression is unknown, but Harry Ward Beecher said, “Mirth is God’s best medicine,” so perhaps that’s the place of origin. Laughing is so much more fun that crying, don’t you think?  I know life is hard, and sometimes circumstances and events just suck.  On the other hand, don’t you think God has a sense of humor?

The wisest man in the world once wrote,

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven– A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.  A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up.  A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance.
[Ecclesiastes 3:1-4]

I read these words often and think, “Is this some kind of riddle?  Does God have a sense of humor?  Does he laugh every time we read these words and try to make sense out of them in our own life experience?”  It’s like the statement, “Always do whatever’s next.” Is it funny?  Is it a test?  Is it a paradox?  Who knows what’s next?

Now for one of my personal favorites:  Everyone is born crying….some never outgrow it.

This sounds like the whiner left to me.  I want to just say, “someone tell a joke already, and get over yourself.”  The current political climate in our country would be outrageously funny, if it weren’t so horribly sad.  People just don’t know how to play nice any more, lose graciously while planning on the next opportunity, or say “congratulations.” It’s like saying, “My watch is three hours fast, and I can’t fix it.  So I’m going to move to New York.”  None of the rhetoric coming out right now even makes sense.

What would God have us do?  How do we fix this?  Let’s read what Solomon says:

A time to search and a time to give up as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; a time to be silent and a time to speak.
[Ecclesiastes 3:6-7]

I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. 
[Ecclesiastes 3:12-14]

It is time to search for a path to healing.  It is time to recognize God’s handiwork.  It is time to realize we can’t have all the answers all the time.  It’s time to laugh at ourselves, eat drink and see good in our labor… that’s God’s gift to us.

I’ll leave you with the one I saw today on the internet… and thought of myself.

“I’m writing a book.  I’ve got the page numbers done, so now I just have to fill in the rest.”