On Weariness and Humor

A strange thing has happened to me over the last few days: I don't find things as funny as I usually do. Generally speaking, I have a pretty broad sense of humor. I think it is related partially to having a fairly wide frame of reference. Instant understanding is key to comedy. The old saying about explaining a joke kills it. The other part is what I imagine to be a subconscious appreciation of good joke construction. Jokes play with our expectations, they present us with the unexpected. Even lacking a complete understanding of the material, a proper arrangement of the beats of the joke still rings true. This is often how I feel about xkcd. It isn't a strip written with me in mind. The writer presents things that interest him and he does it well and more often than not I find it hilarious. Just not today.

I'm sure it's just lack of sleep, the last side-effect of getting a tooth pulled out and the medicated existence of recovery. But it remains an unnerving experience. I hear a joke and recognize it as funny but the gut reaction to humor is diminished. The effect of comedy is cumulative and so even a minor reduction to the impact of jokes adds up pretty quickly. It's a numbness, one that reminds me of depression and my dark night of the soul. Hence the unnerving bit.

But as much as I love my sense of humor, as much as I have feared its loss in the past, that is not the numbness I should fear. Ecclesiastes says it is better to be in a house of mourning than a house of feasting. This is not to contradict Proverbs that says that laughter makes the bones fat. It is to say that the easiest way to escape our existential dilemma is find a quick laugh. We use humor to evade the pressing issues of our existence: life and death and the hereafter. Which is silly because we can't. Death is a certainty and when it stare us in the face, putting on a clown nose and giving it a honk won't cause it to turn away. As much as I enjoy times of laughter, what I need is to be able to feel pain so that I can deal with problems. I don't think it is a coincidence that the disease that Jesus dealt with most was leprosy.

I'm tired and not sure how to wrap this one up. Pain began with sin. Pain is a sign that something is wrong. Pain is a gift as it removes the illusion that this world is where we belong, that everything is as it should be. Pain draws us to the One who heals us, to the One who bore the brunt of our actions so that we might go home; so that we could be with Him.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.