Humor, for whatever season

We come from opposite ends of a spectrum.  Culturally.  Generationally.  Ethnically.

A married man.  And a single man.  The one, a Shepard.  The other, a sheep in a flock.  You got to ask, "you young man, are you bored?  Are you okay?"  Am I striking out with my own?  No luck impressing the ladies?  What is it? The dark skinned man should be berating the light skinned man.  For history, for piety, for semantics.

Love is a verb. I've meditated on this  a lot lately.  Love is- an action, it moves, has a pulse, can grow, can wither, can be nurtured, and neglected.  And it takes thoughtfulness, time, and energy.  Verbing, as it turns out, is loving.  And you can pretty creative when it comes to verbing and loving.

I have this Pastor.  He prays for me.  He mourns for me.  He grieves for me.  He encourages me.  He challenges me, hopes for me, and recently admitted to be willing to put up a decent enough fight for me.  I guess this man of the cloth is a pretty good representation for a lot of the people in my circle.  I must have a lot of pastors in my life.

People you love can come with the biggest, catchiest slogans, "isms", and fortune cookie wisdom.  But how many pray for you, sit with you, muse with you, and at the end of the day, send you off better off than when you arrived?  And the bigger question is, how can you possible begin to return the gratitude?

I came to this point recently.  And yeah it's corny, like we Christians are always in some kind of love fest.  Truth is, we're not.  I cried a lot last week because I was frustrated and broken over my own choices, and the fact I was finally convinced loving the people who'd been hurting me, would be the best way out.  I lose focus.  I get distracted.  Am prone to exhaustion.  I'm no better.

I want my leaders to age well, gracefully and full of life.  So I made it a point to once a week, to send my pastor an email, in which I one simple goal- to make him laugh.  Humor is the medium I'm most comfortable with, and I love telling ridiculous stories.  I sit down, with wit and goofiness as my only guide and write.  Mostly it's the family cat being a larger than life figure with some funky accents.  This pastor suffers from migraines, and a pretty big sized congregation.  So the least I can do is alleviate some of the lingering, and provide a worthwhile distraction.

I won't ever be a comedian.  I'm not trying to be a "teachers pet" and mostly I don't think about it after I'm done, but playfulness is a much apart of life than anything.  Aristotle encourages us to strive between a healthy balance of comedy and tragedy.  Humor is the unspoken spiritual gift Paul never talks about.  And at times, it's the unspoken sermon we all need to hear.  And if faith is all about living life well, not being a 'good' or 'bad' person, then I guess its time to get pretty serious about the sacredness of making someone else smile like an idiot.