He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. [Psalm 2:4]
Life throws things at you, some good, some bad.
The cross that some people have to bear in life is a heavy one. Hemingway knew this well. Life breaks us all, he once wrote. But, he also helpfully pointed to the fact that some people grow at the broken places. God, evidently, has created us all with resilience and armed us with built-in shock-absorbing devices. One such device is humour and laughter. Scriptures puts it well for us. There is “a season for everything, and a time for every matter under heaven”. So there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” [Ecclesiastes 3:4] .
Laughter, it is said, is the best medicine.
There are many health benefits in humour and laughter, we are told.
In the deadly serious business of teaching dogmatic theology, our former professor at Leuven, Belgium, Professor Hermen-Emiel Mertens, would extol the virtues of adding humour to theology. We laugh or smile at mimicries and we laugh at little children’s actions because they mimic adults.
Maria Liu, our dear friend from Inner Mongolia, has seen more than the average share of ups and downs in her life and in the lives of loved ones. Now residing in the Netherlands where she is a professor of dentistry, Maria has sent us a marvelous slide show. It came in Chinese calligraphy set against an ever-changing beautiful backdrop – now of nature, now of interior décor, and now of colourful butterflies… Endlessly, pictures of breath-taking beauty change with each frame, to accompany and complement the calligraphy and to tickle your imagination.
They are so beautiful that we decided to at least have the words translated and shared.
Titled “A Humorous Look at the Year of the Rabbit”, the slide show features a new vision of one centre, two basics, three forgets, four haves, five musts, and six must-nots.
□ One Centre
Let health be the one centre of all things.
□ Two Basics
Give all things a little bit more cavalier treatment.
See all things a little bit less clearly.
□ Three Forgets
Forget your age.
Forget your past.
Forget your wounds.
□ Four Haves
Have a soul-mate.
Have a flourishing career.
Have a warm home.
However weak or strong you may be, have someone who truly loves you.
□ Five Musts
You must sing.
You must dance.
You must laugh.
You must be cavalier.
You must be accommodating.
□ Six Must-Nots
You must not eat only when you are hungry.
You must not drink only when you are thirsty.
You must not sleep only when you are sleepy.
You must not rest only when you are tired.
You must not get a medical check-up only when you are sick.
You must not regret only when you are old.
So go tell your loved ones now, to mind their physical health as well as their inner well being.
For inner health, let your life be filled with laughter, fun and humour.
A humorous person teases out laughter, banishes your sorrow, lightens your mood, and eases the pressure of competitive living.
Health benefits in humour and laughter?
Without humour, life is like a flowerless spring.
The secret source of humour is laughter, not sorrow and pain. So long as we are still alive, we must maintain humour.
So try this little story for humour.
- A pretty lady, all dressed up beautiful and sexy, got out of the taxi but forgot to take along her camera on the back seat. Seeing the camera, the taxi driver instantly rolled down the window, stuck his neck out, and screamed loudly after her, “小姐,你梠機!”
Properly translated, all that the driver was shouting was, “Miss, your camera!” But, as anyone who knows any Chinese can tell you, the cruel thing about the Chinese language is that you can have different words that sound the same, but are miles apart in meaning. The difference in meaning in some cases can be really embarrassing when used in the wrong contexts!
In this case, instead of hearing “Miss, your camera!”, the lady heard “Miss, you are like a chicken!”
Now that is a nasty thing to say to a lady who is dressed up all pretty and sexy.
On hearing that, the lady turned livid. She swung around and cursed with all her might, “You son of a bitch, you – you are like a duck!”
Oh dear! In Chinese, that “chicken” and “duck” reference takes on yet a deeper meaning. Just as the “chicken” reference assumes the connotation of a prostitute, the “duck” reference assigns the driver to the role of a pimp! She has scored a nasty equalizer on him, so to speak. Poor fellow. He’s just a simple cab-driver doing an honest day’s work, and right now simply trying to return a camera a customer has mindlessly left behind.
Incensed by the lady’s attitude, the nasty reference she made about him, and his good deed scorned, the driver sped off in utter disgust.
Then, suddenly realizing that she had left her camera in the taxi, the lady ran after it in her high heels, screaming all the way, “Sir, my camera, my camera!”
Now translate that! As you do so, imagine that you are standing at the sidewalk watching all that unfold before your very eyes and hearing the pretty lady shouting all that “camera” stuff – in reference to herself!
Mother/father-daughter/son laughing their silly heads off under an old durian tree.
We wish all our friends in Sabah and Sarawak a blissful festival season!
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, June 2012. All rights reserved.
You are most welcome to respond to this post. Email your comments to us at jeffangiegoh@gmail.com. You can also be dialogue partners in this Ephphatha Coffee-Corner Ministry by sending us questions for discussion.