“It seems plausible that folly and fools, like religion and magic, meet some deeply rooted needs in human society.” -Peter Berger, Redeeming Laughter
At a convention, filled with pastors and other very religious people, I was sitting on a shuttle bus going from the parking lot to the convention center. The bus made a stop, and on hopped Dennis Swanberg – comedian, and then-pastor. I recognized him, because we’d recently had him as a guest in our church. Somebody else recognized him too. A good ol’ boy hollered from the back of the bus, “Hey! Aren’t you Dennis Swanberg? Say sumpthin’ funny!”
Dennis smiled good-naturedly, but the look in his eye said it all: Seriously?
I joked with him about the cluelessness of the request. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s sorta like saying to a doctor in public, ‘Cure something,’”
One Planet, Two Kingdoms
Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Where are the clowns? [click to continue…]
Somewhere up in heaven, Aunt Ruth is probably hooting. I know she would be if she were still around here.
Aunt Ruth (who was neither my aunt, nor was she named “Ruth”) used to love to catch preachers with their foot in their mouth; it was something of a hobby to her. Nothing could penetrate her sometimes-sharp exterior and produce uncontrollable laughter like hearing that a prim and proper “man of God” had just said something stupid. And she was cruel with it! One little snafu from you-know-who, and I’d hear about it for weeks. And between guffaws, as she would gasp for air, she’d always sound the same warning. If I spelled it the way she said it, it would read like this:
“You gotta watch them woids!”
Rather than get offended, I played along. We often entertained each other with stories we’d heard of other preachers. Like the time a preacher friend of mine said three times in a sermon, “I’m praying that God would make our church a cesspool of His love! A cesspool of His grace! A cesspool of his power!”
He was thinking artesian well. But that’s not what his folks were smelling at the moment.
[click to continue…]