July 11, 2014 - What? No Laughter?

Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot

Saint Benedict was probably the first saint I encountered on my way to becoming Catholic. We read his Rule in my Western Civilization class, and I was both intrigued by the idea of monks, and a little repulsed by the idea that his rule would forbid things like laughter. "What?!?" I thought. Laughter, and with it, joy, seem to me to be the best of life. It was a puzzle.

It was a puzzle similar, perhaps, to the one Jesus names in today's gospel (Matthew 10:16-23). He sends out his disciples to the world, telling them he sends them like sheep among wolves, so they must be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. How is this possible? Sheep seem pretty defenseless against wolves - it's why there are shepherds. And being wise as serpents suggests to me cunning and wiles that run counter to much of my understanding of gentleness. How can you do both well? And to turn back to Benedict - how is refusing laughter either wise or gentle?

The wisdom of our tradition suggests that when puzzles present themselves like these, we try to hold on to that puzzle, pray with that mystery, and see what emerges.

The first reading offers one possible way forward (Hosea 14:2-10). God tells the people to return to him, and to turn away from thinking that anything in the world will save them, least of all power, prestige, armies, and so forth. Instead, what saves is to care for orphans and to have compassion. It can be hard to remember this - for where do we go in the world where there is no power grab, no seeking after promotions and prestige? That seems to be the way the world works.

But part of the point of the scripture is that we have to learn to see power and prestige in a different way, and recognize that they are ultimately rather empty. Even more important, we have to learn to see that having those things shape and form us away from God. In fact, a study I read this week researched wealthy people compared to those in lower income brackets for their sense of generosity - both in giving money to others, and in stopping to help people in distress. Those who had more money gave on average about 1.6% of their income and helped distressed strangers far less than those who were poor (who also gave about 3.8% of their yearly income to charities). Quite a difference!

Being wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove means that we while we live in the world and encounter it, we must always be aware of the ways it forms us - sometimes for good and sometimes not. That takes me back to laughter and Saint Benedict. Many years after I first read the Rule, I read it with some students of mine, and they raised the same question I had had. But all of a sudden, I had an insight: "How many times is our laughter at the expense of someone else, even if meant to be harmless?" And they thought about it and said they thought that the vast majority of peoples' laughter these days is at someone else's expense.

Compare that to the sheer joy my six year old has in swinging as high as she can go, laughing as she does simply because it's fun! There's a huge difference - and I rather suspect that it's the first kind of laughter Benedict was against, because it forms us in ways that not good.

Today, let us ask for the grace to be wise about the world's impact on us - and also for the grace to laugh for joy!

Jana M. Bennett