February 24, 2006

Laugh

Bertolt Brecht said, He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news. 

A friend of mine wondered if Jesus ever laughed. That he always seemed to preach mostly good news might be distracting for he early on surely had a notion there was some bad  news down the line. Maybe he was too young to pick up on old Simeon’s forecast when he was playing catch with him in the Temple and driving his mum bananas (Lk 2.29-32), but given all his noticeable prescience at whatever age  you never can tell.

In Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose,” the monks all stay in a constant switch over whether or not Jesus ever laughed. They take some altogether drastic steps to make their point one way or the other. It’s never bothered me so much, save I can’t imagine, given us then and us now,  how Jesus could ever avoid laughing, if only sardonically.

He was surrounded with about the same quota of stuffed shirts in church and state we have going for us in these times, maybe even fewer, if one can imagine it, and if you pay any attention to them at all, such are always an inspiration for satire. 

Considering all the churchery type Dukes of Puffery charging about on the Dark Side these days with all their bad news, it’s never all that clear how they could ever really be serious about whatever it is they’re serious about. Of course, if we just don’t take them so seriously, the whole church and maybe even the world will be a lot better off. But they’ll always be the first to tell you anyway, long faces and all, that it’s no laughing matter and then probably quote you some Bertolt Brecht all the while singing “Mack, the Knife.”

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