laughing with zach and God

sense of humor is a funny thing. ha. literally. but really, it amuses me to no end. how does everyone aquire their sense of humor? one of my favorite funny-men is zach galifianakis. i really liked his interview in rolling stone ...

“I saw that Ke$ha woman the other day,” he says. She’d e-mailed him about getting a drink, and a few days later, he ran into her in a bar. “She was sitting by herself, and I walked up to her and said, ‘Listen, I got your e-mail. Your music is really bad! I don’t know who listens to it, but I imagine it’s, like, six-year-olds – and it’s a bad message.’ ” [rolling stone july 2011]

i couldn't agree more zach g.

he also mentions that when little kids tell him they loved the hangover he tells them they have terrible parents - and he means it.

not only was the rest of the interview hilarious, but it confirmed a little theory that i have.

i believe that some of the funniest people have endured the greatest pain. their ability to make people laugh can be a defense mechanism, and sometimes such a stealthy one that their pain goes unnoticed. funny people seem to live with a greater awareness of everything that is going on around them, and their ability to read people and situations enables them to be extra funny.

a friend shot this theory down awhile ago, but i think zach g might agree with me. he dislikes fame and has struggled with depression. he did a stand-up bit once discussing the fragility of the human psyche and how he thinks that all comedians are slightly mentally ill. he told rolling stone about the temptation to do movies not because that's what he really wants, but because they can act as a means to a greater end.

"if galifianakis is hesitant to open up too much about this, it's probably because he worries about sounding too angelina - like he'd cheapen what he really cares bout by making it into a thing. "honestly," he says. "if i could talk about what means the most to me in life and stuff, i would. eventually that's what i want to talk about. but i don't know if i can yet, it's hard." hard why? he rubs his head again. "because it's not jokes."" [rolling stone july 2011]

i hope he can start talking about what really means the most to him. i hope everyone can do that. when someone makes me laugh i automatically admire them and become more open to whatever they have to say. when people don't understand my own humor i tend to shut down. if they can't understand what makes me laugh, how could they ever understand what makes my heart ache?

"if you don't live out who you are, the world will never see that part of God. that's how diverse God is." [eric johnson] you represent a part of God that no one else can. no matter what anyone can say or do to us, our identity in Him is unshakable. so just be you! no one else can! even your sense of humor represents a facet of God that no one else can.

i just listened to mark driscoll's sermon on luke 18:18-30, regarding Jesus on money, idolatry and comedy. i don't think i've ever heard a sermon specifically addressing comedy, and apparently i'm not the only one because driscoll points out that of the 17,000 books on Jesus in the library of congress catalog, there is only one on the humor of Jesus.

might have something to do with religious people not being the funniest blokes on the block, or taking themselves too seriously. might have something to do with humor being too great to capture in a book. what do you think?

driscoll disagrees with those who hypothesize that Jesus wasn't a funny guy. david elton trueblood authored "the humor of christ," the one in 17,000 books about the humor of Jesus, writing it specifically to challenge the conventional picture of a Jesus who never laughed ...

"there are numerous passages that are practically incomprehensible when regarded as sober prose but which are illuminous once we become liberated from the gratuitous assumption that Christ never joked. once we realize that Christ was not always engaged in pious talk we have made an enormous step on the road of understanding."

driscoll said that if anyone in the pages of the Bible was a humorous person, it was Jesus. He was a master of wordplay, irony, satire and frequently mixed humor into his conversation.

my favorite exaltation from driscoll's message came at the very end when he said, "we laugh at ourselves or God laughs at us. if we laugh at ourselves we get to laugh with God." laughing is one of my most favorite feelings. pure bliss. it's like zach g said - "when you get that release of laughter, it's just the greatest thing in the world."