Joy and Laughter Support a Serious Faith

The Patheos Book Club is pleased to feature Father James Martin's Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life. The book is being enthusiastically received as an invitation to permit real joy to enter our lives through the vehicle of faith that sustains us. Father Martin spoke with Patheos' Elizabeth Scalia about his motivation for writing the book and how humor can be a surprising and practical route to prayer. Given the Jesuit reputation for intellectualism, and relative to the times, some might have expected you to serve up something rather somber and heavy-handed. Why joy, why laughter, why now? For two reasons. First, I spent a great deal of time giving talks and lectures and conferences on the saints, after my book My Life with the Saints came out. And I found that what people responded to most were stories about the joy of the saints—how they used humor in their lives, how much they laughed and how they were, contrary to the popular conception of the dour saints, joyful men and women. People seemed just delighted to hear this. "I never knew that about the saints!" they would say. "Tell us more!" It was also as if they were looking for permission to be joyful Christians—and laugh! Second, I've run into many "professionally religious" types who are really serious sorts, as if they have the weight of the world on their shoulders. Both those experiences moved me to write something about the seriousness of levity. But, ironically, the book does have its "intellectual" side, too: in its exegesis of some Scripture texts, for example. And while the book is not serious in terms of being heavy, it is serious in terms of addressing an important topic. So, Between Heaven and Mirth is not exactly a pie in the face, but it reminds us—as did Chesterton—that "angels fly because they take themselves lightly." Does that mean people have to be happy all the time, or they're earthbound? Not at all. One point I make in the book several times in the book is that being joyful does not mean being happy all the time. Sadness is a natural and human—and healthy—response to suffering or tragedy. You would be a robot if you weren't sad from time to time. It's an indication of emotional health actually. But overall faith should lead to joy, because joy is happiness in God. Happiness is an emotion about what life gives you; joy is deeper, for it comes from a relationship with God. So you can live a joyful life and still move between happiness and sadness. I'm not arguing that we should be grinning idiots 24/7 but that too much in our understanding of religion says that we need to be unsmiling and serious. And I think that some of this, as I say in the book, comes from an overemphasis on Jesus as the "Man of Sorrows." He was a "Man of Joys," too. On the surface, this book would appear to be feather-light reading—it contains a number of very funny jokes and humorous anecdotes—and yet it presents some very deep lessons. I was surprised at how often, while reading, I was moved to sincere prayer. But if the Holy Spirit moves on the air, it should not surprise us that laughter can lead us to prayer. It shouldn't but it does! We're so used to thinking of prayer as serious—not simply in the sense of serious-important but serious-somber—that your observation can seem shocking. The other day someone asked, "How am I supposed to be contemplative if I'm not serious?" And I thought that this was a fascinating question, because it revealed the person's conflation of contemplation with an overriding seriousness. So I said, "Well, have you ever contemplated God's creation on a beach or in a sunrise?" When he nodded, I said, "And were you doing it with a frown on your face?" We both laughed! There is, you say, both the "good" laughter, which is joyful, warm and self-aware, and then there is the "bad" laughter, which is ungenerous and involves laughing at others—mockery and jeering, and such. Is there an idea worth exploring here, of good laughter opening us up—physically, emotionally and spiritual—to good influences and bad laughter doing the opposite? That's an interesting question. Good laughter definitely opens us up—physically (by releasing endorphins); emotionally (by lightening our spirits) and spiritually (but enabling us to share in a God-given gift). And yes, bad laughter would do something of the opposite—it closes us down to other people, it moves us further away from God and it belittles someone. It's sinful, I believe. You write convincingly that, in the context of how Jesus would have been understood in his time, the New Testament suggests he displayed a sense of humor, that he did not hide it under a bushel. Can you give an example of that? Scripture scholars have told me that the humorous elements of some of Jesus's parables and stories are largely lost on us, because we are so far removed from his time and culture. (And therefore may not "get" some of the humor.) One scholar said that he expected that people of the day found some of Jesus's stories "hilarious." Just look at his image of having a plank of wood in your eye while criticizing someone with a speck of dust in theirs. It's a rather silly image, isn't it? Really over-the-top. I quote one author in the book who said that his four-year-old son once laughed uproariously when he first heard this. Which points to another reason we downplay Jesus's humor. Not only do we not "get" some of the humor; the humor that we do "get" we may have heard too often—like this story—and so have become rather deadened to the joke. I've always thought of the exchange between Jesus and his mother to be something warmly humorous—Mary, like many of us mothers, seeing something that needs attending to and using the son at her disposal to see to it. Can you expand on how that might be seen in a humorous and yet spiritual way? As we believe that Jesus was fully human (and divine) and Mary was human, as well as very open and loving people we must assume that they had a sense of humor. Not having a sense of humor would mean that they weren't human! And you can see some traces of this. (Why we don't see more traces is something I cover in the book.) For example, there are two ways of reading the story of the Wedding at Cana, where Mary asks Jesus to help the crowd that has run out of wine. Jesus says, "Woman, what business is this of yours?" And Mary says to the steward "Do whatever he tells you." Her comments are usually said in very somber tones. Often it's used as an indication of Mary's desire for us to follow Jesus, which is true of course. But I once heard a priest once proclaim the reading with Mary as an exasperated mother saying, with a wave of the hand, "Oh, do whatever he tells you!" As in: "Hey, my Son won't listen to me! Maybe you'll have more luck." And the crowd laughed. It opened up for me a new way of seeing Mary: patient, faithful, but also somewhat exasperated with Jesus. She was human after all, and clearly was initially confused by what her son was doing. Remember the time when she and the rest of her family are outside of Jesus's house saying that they think he's gone crazy? So perhaps she was exasperated a bit, at least at first. Her words at Cana may (I wasn't there so I don't know) reveal a little humor. But overall, they were both human, and so they must have had a sense of humor and surely laughed. Why might it be heretical to consider Jesus of Nazareth, the messiah, not possessing a sense of humor? Having a sense of humor is part of being "fully human." So to say that he didn't have a human attribute is to say that he wasn't fully human, which is a heresy. Also, in the book I mention a psychologist to whom I posed this question: What would a person without a sense of humor be like? She said that a person without humor would be incapable of entering into social situations, would miss regular "cues" from others and would have a hard time relating to others. That is the opposite of the Jesus we know from the Gospels. The life of faith is full of funny little ironies. One that you mention in the book pertains to our Ash Wednesday liturgy and practice. We hear a reading that says, "Wash your face, so that your fasting may not be seen by others," then immediately get in line to have our foreheads smeared. How does enjoying these ironies help us with our own self-awareness and our "wakefulness"? As G.K. Chesterton said, "It is the test of a good religion whether can joke about it." While we need to take God and our faith seriously, we have to admit that from time to time that Catholics occasionally do some funny things and, as Chesterton said, it's okay to laugh. Pope Benedict, in a quote I mention in the book, also says that God sometimes wants us not to take things so seriously. What role does gratitude play in joy? An immense part. Gratitude is the gateway to the spiritual life. Reminding ourselves of what we're grateful for reminds us of our reliance on, and our relationship with God, which leads to joy. On a simpler level, those without gratitude cannot live joyful lives. How do you think Western prosperity influences our capacity for joy, for better or worse? I think for worse, frankly. Pope Paul VI, in his letter "On Christian Joy," speaks of the paradox of a culture that has almost everything it needs and still lacks joy. Part of this is a certain ignorance of how good we have it. But that forgetfulness is rather easy: I spent two years working in East Africa during my Jesuit training, and I vowed that I would never, once I came home, take for granted things like hot water, air conditioning, medical care, things like that. When I came back I was so grateful for all of that. But in a few months I was taking them for granted. So it needs to be combated. When her nuns would fall into dolors, Saint Teresa of Avila was known to bring out the castanets and encourage dancing. It seems like another way to teach her famous prayer, "Let nothing disturb you; let nothing frighten you..." Your book seems like a practical handbook for living that prayer: how do laughter and trust work together? Laughter means that you trust that all will work out well, as St. Teresa said. And that even if it doesn't seem to be at the time, you can trust in the God who accompanies you. Thank you, Father Martin, for taking the time to chat with us on a book that is not only a great bit of entertainment, but wise and helpful encouragement, as well. My pleasure—and joy! Visit the Patheos Book Club for more conversation on Between Heaven and Mirth.