See the humor in living

I told Barry that I needed to start writing columns with more social relevance. He grunted, and I assume that meant he agreed.
So look for that kind of column soon.
But don’t look for it today.
I can remember some of my more philosophical friends from college having a heated discussion one afternoon as they were sitting around the student union. Usually, when four friends in our group were sitting at the student union, there was a game of Spades going on, but apparently no one had thought to bring a deck. In the absence of what we considered true entertainment, they unleashed their brains and put a spin on their collective moral compasses, and locked mental horns on the subject of God.
Specifically, the question was - Does God have a sense of humor?
Understand, we were a bunch of know-it-all kids just out of our teens. We figured the best way to gain respect was to show off our ability to grapple with complex issues involving deeply held beliefs.
If any of us had the slightest chance at hooking up with a cheerleader, we would have decidedly taken a different track to climb the social ladder.
Anyway, the schools of thought on the subject were, naturally, pro and con.
The antagonists in the issue felt that God was such a serious entity and dealt with such decidedly sobering issues of life, he had no time to entertain such mundane distractions as a sense of humor.
The pro-humorists believed that since we were all God’s creatures, and a sense of humor is all such an important part of what we are as human beings, God must surely possess such an entity.
This went on for about an hour, and worked its way through several pots of coffee. For that day, the issue was decided by a disinterested young rebel who was sitting in the student union, thoroughly enjoying watch this group of pseudo-intellectuals waste their afternoon.
He walked over to the tables we were sitting at, leaned in, and said, “You know, guys, God does have a sense of humor. Just look around you.”
It made sense. Why would the Almighty provide us with a sense of humor and not enjoy one himself? And since His world is so full of humorous things, surely he would get at least a little chuckle out of the many entities he puts before us.
Another person later in my life amplified on the issue. He said, “God has a sense of humor … and some days, he’s rolling around heaven, holding his sides.”
It’s really critical in this day and time to be able to use all of your gifts, including the sense of humor given to you by God. One of the things that keeps me grounded in my trevails of daily life is that I can see so much humor in my life, and usually in very mundane and ordinary things.
If you can spot these things, you can provide yourself a little chuckle. Tell yourself a little joke and be the only one to get it. That can be very satisfying. Or share it with a few people who you know will get it.
For example …
I was having dinner with my family at one of those Mom-and-Pop restaurants that frequent the small town my mother lives in. When we got our menus, I noticed that an inserted card held the daily specials. But the card had so many glaring spelling errors, I started to chuckle at the pure ridiculousness of it.
I pointed it out - quietly - to my sister, and soon she was giggling and pointing to the menu for the benefit of another sister. Mom was about to send us away from the table.
Now mom and the sisters have spent plenty of time eating at that particular restaurant. They never noticed that little card, or its predecessors. But seeing it from a different perspective - mine - allowed them to appreciate the little laugh it provided.
There are several of those little things around. Just look and see what you see. Things like:
- Someone walking around wearing a jacket with shorts.
- People eating two double cheese burgers, a super-sized order of fries, and a small diet coke.
- Someone sweeping the sidewalk in front of their house on a windy day.
- A small boy riding his older brother’s bicycle.
- The face a person makes when they are drinking a milkshake with those bits of real fruit in it, and a piece of fruit blocks the straw off.
- A shopper walking around with a garment from a bargain bin, and person following them around, hoping the person abandons it so they can scoop it up.
- People sitting in church trying to stay awake. (That doesn’t happen at my church, in case my ministers are reading this.) Better yet, watch the spouses or parents of the nodders, trying to subtly awaken their companions.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of what’s funny out there, and there are a lot bigger belly laughs in the universe. But these are but a sample of the little laugh that sustains us all.
Those little laughs can really pick a person up when life is dealing out tough times. Things like that can make you laugh when the day has been making you try and cry. That’s the pressure valve working, easing the stress of your day. If you can’t see one of these moments, think of the last one you did see.
When you are ready to pop, think about the last time you saw a woman coming out of the restroom, wearing a dress with the hem caught in the top of her pantyhose or dragging a bit of toilet paper from her shoe.
Those are the real precious memories. And they are not all that hard to find … if you just look for them.