Earlier this year I read "The Screwtape Letters", the classic literary work from CS Lewis. In it, he writes from the perspective of a "veteran devil" named Screwtape who is writing a series of advisory letters to his nephew, Wormwood, who has been assigned to watchdog a young English man in the World War II time period. In these letters, Screwtape goes through a series of suggestions about ways for his eager young nephew devil to cause this man to stumble and fall away from God (referred to as "the Enemy").

I've typed out an excerpt from one of the letters that I found particularly interesting: some of the ways that humor can be beneficial and harmful. Keep in mind that this is from the perspective of a devil, so you'd need to "reverse" most of your concepts of what is "good" and what is "bad." Read on...

I divide the causes of human laughter into Joy, Fun, The Joke Proper, and Flippancy... (Joy) is expressed in much of that detestable art which the humans call Music, and something like it occurs in Heaven - a meaningless acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience, quite opaque to us... Fun is closely related to Joy... it promotes charity, courage, contentment and many other evils...

I can definitely identify with what is written about joy here - that it is something that is seems to spring from Heaven, and that it can often be found expressed in music. Another quote I've heard: "Aside from silence, music is the best way to express the inexpressible." I can't say that I'm by nature a particularly joyful person - I tend to be more on the dour side - but I think that after giving my life over into Jesus' hands, I've been made more sensitive to people, things and events that inspire joy, to be more easily moved by beauty. I'm slowly learning. But that's a blog topic for another time.

The real use of Jokes or Humour is in quite a different direction... it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame. If a man simply lets others pay for him, he is "mean"; if he boasts of it in a jocular manner and twits his fellows with having been scored off, he is no longer "mean" but a comical fellow... Cruelty is shameful - unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke... But flippancy is the best of all.... Among flippant people, the Joke is always assumed to have been made... the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it.

Here, we see a couple of interesting statements about the potentially good and bad parts of humor, and laughter in general. I'll write about the bad first:

Bad:
- destroys shame
- deadens the intellect
- excites no affection between those who practice it, conversely may produce enmity

In particular, Screwtape references a particular sort of humor called "flippancy". "Among flippant people, the Joke is always assumed to have been made... the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour plating against the Enemy that I know."

I think that this hits home for me because this is an area where I struggled and still struggle. I tend to be fairly sarcastic and can have something of a sharp tongue. Sometimes I'm reminded of Chandler from "Friends", where he says that humor is a defense mechanism that built up in his younger years to distance himself from people. I see this as the "armor plating" that Screwtape refers to - not taking anything or anyone seriously, using sharp remarks to cut down those people who try to draw close - including God. It wasn't until college when a friend called me on this - that sometimes my words could bludgeon or wound, when I thought I was making a joke. I was the man referred to in Proverbs 26:18-19 - "Like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbor and says, 'I was only joking!'" It was an eye-opener to consider the effect I was having, and I've consciously been trying to curb my tongue and strip away this shell of flippancy - and in so doing, I think that I've been able to build deeper friendships and have also been able to know God on a more personal level. While flippancy can prevent intimacy with people and with God, I think that recognizing the true and good nature of humor can have positive benefits:

Good:
- inspires joy
- sharpens the intellect
- excites affection between those who practice it
- promotes charity, courage, contentment

Have you ever noticed that a good laugh can really solidify a moment and a memory in a friendship? I think there's a good reason - I believe one of the primary intended purposes of humor is to promote affection between people, to strengthen relationships.

I also think that it can sharpen the intellect. Irony, cleverness, amusement, whimsy, wit; these all require a person to recognize that sometimes life is funny. Maybe that's why I enjoy the occasional pun - the good ones, you wouldn't normally think of; it requires a stretching of your mind's boundaries.

So what's the lesson in all this? Laugh! Build one another up! There are so many benefits to "being of good cheer."

With that, I'm off to hopefully make my parents laugh tonight :-).

P.S. Got any puns or jokes to offer? Post them on my message board.