Posted on 11/23/2021 12:15:43 PM PST by Kaslin
If heaven is more real than earth, joy is more realistic than despair.
A friend and I were recently discussing the tension we feel between seriousness and humor, both online and in real life. Living as eternal souls in this sin-cursed world is undoubtedly serious business. I’m always bringing up weighty matters of politics or theology, because how else will we learn to live well in this life or the next? It matters.
At the same time, we must laugh. Humor is the padding that keeps life from being all sparks and sharp angles. It defuses tensions and reminds us we’re all human. After all, our very existence as angel-like souls inside animal-like bodies is tinged with comedy.
Which brings me to the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies.
I waited a day before forcing myself to read about the dreadful slaughter at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. When I finally did, I learned that the dead were mostly members and supporters of this troupe of grandmothers, who dance at parades and events for the delight of their neighbors.
Dancing Grannies are the very best kind of humor: the gentle kind that laughs at oneself and at life, that laughs at the fact that somehow, while your spirit stayed young, your body turned into a septuagenarian’s while you weren’t looking. And you dance anyway.
In one horrifying moment, it was all snuffed out. There’s something so jarring in the way it happened, so out-of-place, like laughing during the Lord’s Supper. We all know we’re going to die one day, but we don’t envision it happening while we’re grooving to the music with a grin on our face. Humor doesn’t mesh with murder. The joy of living doesn’t mesh with being crushed to death in the street.
It tempts you to believe that the humor was never real — that the joy of living is an illusion, a fool’s way of passing the time until our inevitable end. If humor is the padding of life, it seems to be made of something easily flammable. It can burn away in an instant, leaving only the sharp, steely angles of our cursed human condition behind.
But in reading about those who died, it’s clear that their enjoyment in dancing at parades came from something deeper and far more serious. It came from lives well-lived, invested in families, communities, and churches. It came from a willingness to leave behind false dignity and choose joy — which is the same route, over different terrain, by which sinners find salvation.
“Milton was right,” C.S. Lewis depicts the spirit of George MacDonald saying in “The Great Divorce”:
The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.’ There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy—that is, to reality. Ye see it easily enough in a spoiled child that would sooner miss its play and its supper than say it was sorry and be friends. Ye call it the Sulks. But in adult life it has a hundred fine names—Achilles’ wrath and Coriolanus’ grandeur, Revenge and Injured Merit and Self-Respect and Tragic Greatness and Proper Pride.
If pride is the root of human sin — and it is — the humility to laugh at oneself is a blow struck against the heart of darkness. Please don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying joining the Dancing Grannies is the means of salvation. I’m saying it speaks of a heart that is ready for it.
And if heaven is more real than this earth — and it is — then a life of joy and humor is more in line with reality than one of dignified despair. Yes, on this earth, death looks like the reality and joy looks like the illusion. But in eternity the balance shifts. In heaven, it’s death that gets snuffed out by joy in an instant. It’s joy that lasts forever while death is burned away.
So may the grannies dance on. And so may we all.
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
It’s good to kill Evil.
Blacks do not enjoy whites having fun. Their own type of fun is much more lively and ends up in riots. Fun to watch on youtube. Checkout fights at Walmart, McDonalds, and my favorite Popeyes.
Banishment from the tribe. Those with long rap sheets need a place we can dump them. Just think how much the economy could grow without them. Incarceration costs have to be around $100 billion/yr.
Living in the area I have had the good fortune to view the Dancing Grannies. Their performance is remarkable. I could not keep up with any of them.
“need a place we can dump them”
Well, we can’t deport them because no other country would be crazy enough to take them. Maybe we can turn Hawaii into a penal colony.
A poignant liturgy.
Siberia. Plenty of old prisons there Putin could reactvate as our contractor. Probably cheaper than anything we could arrange closer, absent a speedy death penalty. Putin could use the cash, it could improve our relations. Since Covid made a precedent, most needed legal proceeding regarding there could be done over zoom. Lib lawyers need not inconvenience themselves. Cruel and unusual concerns would be resolved by pointing out the usual, foreign laws being employed by the jailers. Couple centuries of experience with Siberian justice suggests its deterrent value is strong.
I don’t think you should make general statements like that. I live in Jacksonville, FL and I go to a couple of restaurants that are very popular with black people, and they’re lovely, fun, dressed to the nines. We all have a good time, and the same is true at the gym I go to. Their style may be different, but we all respect each other and have fun.
The thug class is a whole different matter, and that’s something only the “black community,” which isn’t a community at all, can deal with. They have to reject the thug ethos and image, but the “black leaders” make money off of dysfunction, so it’s hard for the average citizen to do anything.
I recently read that the black population is steadily leaving places like Chicago and other big cities because they want to get away from the thug population or avoid being lumped with them.
The real problem is that you have all of the white liberal establishment inciting race hatred on both sides, and this is bringing everybody down and setting them against each other.
Kiska Island would be a good dump site. Every winter would mark the end of society’s obligation to the scum.
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