Tag Archives: tim burton

Lighten Up and Laugh a Little

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I just returned a few hours ago from three days in Vermont. I spoke briefly at a dinner on Thursday night, and then gave two speeches, the first on Friday in Montpelier (which is the capital city), and the second on Saturday at a conference in Burlington. Sitting here this morning, the only thing I can think to say is that I know for a fact God has a sense of humor. This is true, not only because he often displays it in His Word, but because we all still exist. No, I’m not cranky. I say this after a short layover last night at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. What a place! If God lacked the ability to laugh at our ridiculousness, I’m guessing He’d have pressed heaven’s gigantic red destructo-button a long time ago. The fact that He hasn’t is confirmation that His humor is directly related to His patience, which, in turn, could only be born from His unfathomable love for His creation.

But again, the proof of His humorous side, especially the times when He has poked fun at us, are already visible in His Word. It’s likely I’ve shared some of my favorites with you before. For starters, when God describes by Solomon’s hand a beautiful woman engaging in indiscretion as a pig with a gold ring through her nose, that’s kind of a funny image to me (Proverbs 11:22). Or when eleven chapters later, God calls out slackers and their lame excuses (22:13), it’s as if Solomon knew what it was like to have kids who play video games all day long. I also enjoy the story of Elijah facing off with the prophets of Baal, especially that moment when God moves him to taunt them, calling out, “Cry aloud, for (Baal) is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened” (1 Kings 18:27). Relieving himself? If the reader only knew what Elijah meant by that, he or she would likely blush.

I could go on and on, but that’s plenty. Okay, maybe one more from that grittier vein.

Have you read Galatians 5:7-12? God, speaking through the Apostle Paul, is upset with the Galatians for being led by the Judaizers back into thinking that the Law can somehow save them. In this section of the letter, Paul pokes fun at the belief that circumcision is one of the proofs of an Olympic-sized Christianity, and so he recommends those who are saying as much should just go all the way to the big leagues and “emasculate themselves” (v. 12). In other words, why settle for the minor league badge of honor with God, having cut off only a little, when you can step up your game of faith and take the whole thing off?

That, right there, is funny.

Truth be told, to even come close to discovering these biblical gems, you need a sense of humor. You most certainly need to be able to laugh at yourself. In my humble opinion, the ability to laugh at one’s failings—not proudly, but with a genuine admittance to one’s own stupidity—this is one of the ways of dominating the guilt that Sin, Death, and the devil try to impute. I mean, those times in my life when the devil tries to remind me of my Sin, it’s easy enough to say, “Well, what do you expect? I’m an idiot. Thankfully, the Lord loves and forgives idiots like me.” Unfortunately, the world we live in appears to have long since lost the ability to laugh at itself, and instead, epitomizes what Will Rogers meant by the words, “Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.”

If there’s one thing we do a lot of in the Thoma house, it’s laugh. Sometimes we do it at each other’s expense. Trust me, it’s not cruelly intended, and I always receive my fair share, for which I’m glad. There are far too many miseries stalking the countryside beyond our walls, all of them promising ample opportunities for sadness. Thankfully, it seems that whenever we meet up with these meandering brutes, the Thoma family continues to prove an uncanny ability for discovering what’s funny about them.

A smile is something of a human wonder. And yet, there are few things better than a smile giving way to genuine laughter. God willing, this truth is not lost on you. Hopefully you’ve known a time or two with family, friends, or even complete strangers when you’ve found yourself laughing so hard that you nearly cried. During our recent time together in holiday quarantine, I can promise you that I and my family laughed a lot. In fact, I learned anew just how funny each of them can truly be.

To come at all of this from a different direction, I mentioned to the folks in the adult Bible study last Sunday that I’ve begun the application process necessary for pursuing a doctorate. I’m not fully vested in the idea just yet, mainly because I already have way too many irons in the fire—and not to mention, I have one child in college and two more nearing the same thresholds of expense. But we’ll see. Jennifer is supportive, and I know many of you are, too. That’s helpful. But either way, I haven’t even been accepted, yet, so there’s that. Still, those who know me well can affirm that I’m a fan of creative language, and so if I do go forward with the effort, I’ll likely settle on a course that has something to do with creative writing in service to the Church. I’m telling you this because, while scanning the horizon of relative possibilities, I found myself chuckling while reading an article written by a youthful PhD candidate suggesting that Philip Stanhope, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield (best known as Lord Chesterfield in the literary world) was both a sexist and a pietist, being someone who prided himself on never laughing, even counseling his son in various letters to never be caught smiling, and to treat women with the same care you’d offer simple-minded children.

Again, I laughed when I read what this up-and-coming scholar had written. And why? Because he completely misread Chesterfield. For his era, Chesterfield tended to be somewhat of a “Bob Newhart” with his style. When you get a chance, just take a look at the portrait of him painted by Allan Ramsay. You can see the sly facetiousness sketched right into the contours of the man’s face. While his humor may have been dry, his wit was incredibly deep, and I’ve read enough of his scribblings to know he appreciated working in opposites. In other words, if he wanted his son to laugh more, he’d forbid him from laughing altogether, assuring him hyperbolically “that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh.” If he wanted his boy to be respectful of women, he’d describe with an encouraging tone outlandish things the young man could do that would certainly put them off—like treating them in every way as one would treat children.

I use the same style while teaching and with public speeches, whether my audience is comprised of youth or adults. I became more aware of this style’s value through my favorite seminary professor (who also preached at my ordination), Rev. Dr. David P. Scaer. He’s the one who stoked the coals of this comfortable style that helps make the details of just about any topic of conversation more memorable. And why does it work? Because it changes the rules of communication in drastic ways, ones that force the listener to do more than just take in information. A person must think abstractly, analyzing the ridiculous in comparison to the obvious, taking what’s genuinely bad and setting it alongside what’s genuinely good.

What kind of dolt completely misreads this skillfulness in Chesterfield? My guess is either the kind of person who has no sense of humor, or the kind who wants to do what so many others are doing these days—which is to rewrite history in order to cancel goodness. Unfortunately, I think it’s the latter rather than the former. It seems one can make a name for his or herself in today’s academic world by coming up with radically overanalyzed premises intent on canceling what society has long understood as good, and Lord Chesterfield hasn’t been spared.

In the end, the rest of us—the normal people who aren’t offended by every little rhetorical barb causing the slightest discomfort—will continue to laugh at funny things, all the while enjoying the ability to laugh at ourselves. We’ll do this because we know we are sinners who are already well-deserving of any jab we might get, all the while recognizing the value that even God sees in humor. It’s an exceptional way of bringing insight to dimly lit situations, ones that need a little bit of jostling in order to make sense of them.

I need to get along to other things, so to close this all out, I’ll end with a joke from the movie “Big Fish,” which is a favorite (and an incredibly underrated) film by Tim Burton that Jennifer and I revisited last week. Interestingly, the main character, Edward Bloom, played at various ages by Albert Finney and Ewan MacGregor, in many ways epitomizes what I’ve already described. For instance, in one scene, Bloom describes with great seriousness for his daughter-in-law a recurring and terrifying dream he used to have as a child. He told the story of a crow that came to him and said his aunt was going to die. When he awoke, he was so rattled, he went to his parents and told them about the dream, but they brushed off his concern. The next day, his Aunt Stacy was discovered dead.

“That’s terrible,” the daughter-in-law said.

“Terrible for her,” Bloom replied, “but think about me, a young boy with that kind of power.” He continued, “It wasn’t three weeks later that the crow came back to me in a dream and said, ‘Your daddy’s gonna die.’ I didn’t know what to do. I finally told my father, but he said, ‘Oh, not to worry,’ but I could see he was rattled. The next morning, he wasn’t himself, kept looking around, waiting for something to drop on his head, because the crow didn’t say how it was gonna happen, just those words: ‘Your daddy’s gonna die.’ Well, he left home early and was gone for a long time. When he finally came back, he looked terrible, like he was waiting for the axe to fall all day. He said to my mother, ‘I’ve just had the worst day of my life.’ ‘You think you’ve had a bad day,’ she said. ‘This morning the milkman dropped dead on the porch!’”

Bloom never broke his stare of seriousness, making the moment even more impactful.

Now, this short theatrical exchange I just shared could offend you as being in poor taste, or it could make you laugh, because in a memorable way, it allowed genuine human beings the opportunity to own the foolishness of thinking we can forever hide our transgressions, especially from the divine; or that any seemingly serene context is free of Sin’s fingerprints. These are important lessons to be learned. But as I said, whatever your preference may be, I’ll leave it to you to laugh as you become wiser, or to frown from offense. Just know that if you are offended, give me at least until Monday to let me know. I’m far too tired right now to respond.

Bumper Stickers

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The Thoma family just returned from a very short trip south to visit my parents. We met up with my sister, Shelley, and her family, too. My mom turns 70 tomorrow, and as it would go, we were actually able to sneak away for most of Friday and Saturday to celebrate with her. We met them all in South Bend, Indiana, which is about half way between us. My mom was glad we came. And thankfully, returning home yesterday, we managed to stay ahead of the storms, having arrived just before they hit.

At one point during our adventures, as it is whenever one travels, it became necessary to eat. Unfortunately, there weren’t many places near to where we were staying. As it would happen, however, right across the street from our hotel was a gas station with a pizza restaurant attached. When I saw it was a Noble Roman’s pizzeria, I more or less lunged.

Noble Romans was a thing for my family when I was growing up in Danville, Illinois. When we moved to Morton, Illinois, just before my junior year in high school, we left Noble Romans behind, and I can say that I probably haven’t visited one since I was sixteen or so. Still, seeing the sign brought back memories of pizza-making birthday parties and after-game gatherings with basketball families. Needless to say, I left the family to unpack, having promised them a delightful dinner. Because it was a fairly busy intersection, I decided to drive, which in essence meant crossing from one parking lot over the road to the restaurant’s lot. Easy enough. Except the restaurant’s parking spaces were full. No problem. I wasn’t staying long. With that, I pulled up next to a gas pump and parked.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

On the other side of the pump was a minivan adorned with bumper stickers—so many stickers, in fact, that there was very little uncovered space left on the back hatch of the vehicle. Had its pilot been a little less aware of my presence, I’d have taken a picture, because I think like me, you would have laughed at the spectrum of stereotypical concerns communicated by what was, in essence, a rolling billboard of “political correctness.”

There were stickers shaming big corporations beside stickers complaining about pollution’s effect on the natural environment. There was a sticker asking the viewer to save the lives of honey bees. There were stickers degrading guns and their owners. There were stickers decrying poverty and income inequality, one speaking rather specifically about raising the minimum wage. There were stickers warning of the dangers of climate change beside stickers selling the proposition that we’re killing polar bears. There was a “Black Lives Matter” sticker near a “Stop Police Violence” sticker. There were stickers lauding PETA. Of course, there were stickers degrading President Trump and his supporters. There were stickers promoting marijuana. There were stickers celebrating transgenderism near rainbow-colored “equality” stickers promoting same-sex marriage. There was a sticker that referred to organized religion as evil—although, it was by no means a generalized statement since it displayed a Bible with a red X through it. Humorously, just below the “religion is evil” sticker rested another one promoting Wicca, which is the modern pagan religion that employs witchcraft. And as if that wasn’t funny enough, only inches away from the Wicca sticker was a token “Coexist” sticker.

I suppose I’m sharing this for a reason. I’ll try to find my way to it.

I’ll get there by first saying I saw a meme re-shared this morning by a friend which offered, “Villainy wears many masks; none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.” For the record, the original sharer of the meme claimed the quotation’s source as Washington Irving, suggesting it could be found in his delightful little volume The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I know for a fact the line isn’t in that book. I say this because I read Irving’s story at least once a year. In truth, the quotation comes from the 1999 Tim Burton film “Sleepy Hollow.” This, too, is a favorite of mine, even though it’s hardly based on Irving’s story. I like the film because I appreciate Johnny Depp’s performance. I’m even more appreciative of Christopher Lee’s brief appearance at the beginning. As it would go, Ichabod Crane is the one who mouths the line in the film, and for what it’s worth, it’s well-placed as a nod to what I think is one of the sub-themes of Irving’s book—which is that while people may portray care and concern for others, in the end, most folks are really only concerned for the self, and this often results in a life of contradictory behavior. I’m guessing this is at the heart of the infamous line near the end of the book, something Irving writes with almost alarming plainness just after the schoolteacher, Ichabod, is thought to have met his end at the hands of the headless Hessian.

“As he was a bachelor, and in nobody’s debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him…”

This line is then followed by rich descriptions of the whole community simply going on without Ichabod. The reader is left with the feeling that for as virtuous as the community may actually be, it’s real creed is “better him than me.”

I suppose the quotation in the movie hints to the screenwriter’s knowledge of Irving’s work, and with that, it’s worth our while. Indeed, history proves that villains often prefer the mask of humble virtue, portraying concern for this or that issue, but in the end, only wearing it for the sake of “self.” They are a living contradiction in terms.

A similar bit of wisdom from Bernard Shaw comes to mind. With his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, even in the early 1900s, the Irish playwright tipped his hat to the inherent contradiction at the heart of virtue-signaling when he inferred sarcastically that the “more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the owner of the van beside me at the gas pump in Indiana was indeed a flaming meteor of ideological contradiction. He looked to be uprightly concerned for so many noble things, and yet he betrayed his darker devotion to “self” and its opinions.

Think about it.

Coexist, being sure to be tolerant of other beliefs, but do it leaving room in your tolerance for hating people who support Trump. And remember, all organized religions, namely the Christian denominations, are evil. Except for the Wiccan religion. That organized religion devoted to witchcraft is okay. Also, because life is very important, we ought to be mindful of it even in its tiniest form. Thusly, honey bees are important. But unborn human babies, not so much. Along those same lines, don’t forget to be mindful of the environment, being thoughtful of nature and its laws as they meet with society… except, of course, when it comes to the natural laws governing sexual orientation and gender identity. Even though those laws are pretty much foundational to humanity itself, it’s okay to confuse them. I mean, regardless of the long term effects, happiness must always eclipse truth, right?

I don’t necessarily know what the lesson to be learned here is, except maybe to say that sinful humanity most often lives by selfish opinion rather than fixed, objective truth. Of course, we all fall prey to such behavior. Even Christians. And it’s good to be aware of it.

But Christians know by the Word of the Gospel that while being aware of it is one thing, confessing and repenting of it is even better. Repenting and confessing is always met by the Lord’s forgiveness. His forgiveness continues to feed the ability to repent, confess, and amend our lives so that they realign with the truth of God’s Word. This keeps us from becoming a mess of contradictions that never really gain a firm grasp on actuality.

I dare say it’s what keeps genuine Christians from joining up with pro-choice, BLM, pro-LGBTQ groups, let alone slap their bumper stickers all over our cars.

Again, the Word of God is the Christian’s North Star. No matter our direction, whether we think we’re right or wrong, we can set our maxims by this standard—God’s standard. Established in this way, we’ll always be found in the impenetrably fixed grounds of Godly certainty.