Humor, offered in love, can help build community life. Frankly, an occupational hazard of religious folk is to become stuffy bores. And humor helps to undercut this danger by stoutly refusing to allow us to take ourselves too seriously. It is a grace when we can laugh at our gaffes and foibles. Humor helps us welcome the unexpected and the unpredictable, to relish the ridiculous and the absurd. We don’t need to create a huge chasm between prayer and playfulness.

Laughing is the other side of weeping. The humble are able to do both freely.