What Would Jesus Laugh At?

              We all have at least one of “those people” on our email lists don’t we? You know the ones.  Those folks we  worked on some project with, who have our email address saved, or who are co-members of some list serve set up for a specific activity that has morphed in to a mini social network.  These folks seem quite pleasant when you interact in that sphere of your life you share with them, even though you know (whether or not THEY know) that you have wildly differing views on issues such as politics, religion or what constitutes a joke worth forwarding to your entire address book.

                What to do when these erstwhile friends repeatedly and unthinkingly (we hope) mass forward “jokes” received from their fellow travellers, and which you find offensive or at least Not Appropriate? 

                I belong to a list serve along with a number of people with divergent points of view on all things other than our common hobby. A couple years ago, we actually had to break our list serve into two different chat groups: one for  hobby  “business”, and one for “chat”.  The people on the chat list are mostly adult women but  we have some men and some kids chatting with us as well.

One of the members of the chat list claims to be a  “Christian conservative.” She evidently finds or is sent “jokes” on a regular basis that she forwards to our list. Her most recent joke relied on negative stereotypes of Muslims and undocumented immigrants for its “punch line.” This is not the first time she has forwarded this type of thing, although several of us have asked her not to post these “jokes.” It seems as if she will not understand how harmful these “jokes” can be, especially to the minds of the kids on line with us. She's not the only person in the world to forward inappropriate stuff across the web universe, nor is she the worst offender; these joke attacks seem to be everywhere these days.

In order to counter this trend, I propose that we start a new movement on the Internet: the What Would Jesus Laugh At (WWJLA) Movement.  The premise is pretty simple.  If God created everything, that includes humor. Jesus taught that all people are created in the image and likeness of God. Jesus told us to love everyone, even our “enemies.”   

                So What Would Jesus Laugh At?

                In Matthew’s Chapter 25, Jesus talks about separating the sheep from the goats at the time of judgment. The sheep in this story are the ones who get to hang out with God forever and the goats get to wail and gnash their teeth someplace else.  I think that Jesus would laugh at the sheep’s jokes and weep at the goats' jokes. What would that look like?

                I think Jesus would laugh about silly things he and others do in the course of the day, but would laugh with his friends, not at them. Jesus would laugh at the innocent antics of kids and animals that are just plain cute.  Jesus would laugh at the foibles of the proud and self-important, at the absurdity of those who think they can outsmart God, and at the very notion that any of God’s children would think themselves better than any other of God’s children on the basis of race or creed or sex.

                But I think that Jesus would weep at meanness.  He would weep at the constant temper tantrum of “mine, not yours” that reverberates through corporate boardrooms, at Tea Party rallies and in the halls where laws are supposed to be made.  Jesus would weep at scapegoating the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill.  Jesus would weep at jokes that rely on violence for their punch line. Jesus would weep when racial, ethnic, religious and gender stereotypes are used to get a laugh. Jesus would weep at jokes that assume that any one group of humans is inherently superior to humans who do not look or think like they do.

                The What Would Jesus Laugh At (WWJLA) movement would call us to critically consider whether or not to mass forward everything that shows up in our inbox.  When we get a joke in our email, WWJLA asks us to consider whether Jesus would think that it is funny. If not, then the least we can do is  ignore it and not send it bouncing back out across the web. Better yet,  we can delete it  after we respond to the sender asking them not to send that type of message to us anymore.  After all, we don’t want to make Jesus cry.

                I realize that my little rant won’t change anything on its own. But maybe at least it can coax a “good” laugh out of those who read it. Maybe this one little thing can be a motivating spark that leads us to think about the divisive way we talk at one another, and about one another, on line and face to face.

A DEATH UNNOTICED

On the first weekend of May, 2011, the world reacted to the death of Osama bin Laden in a variety of ways. Many were openly jubilant, while many others cautioned that that kind of response to the death of any human being was not appropriate. But even those with more sober reactions to news of bin Laden’s death at the hands of US Navy Seals were more likely than not to consider his death with, if not satisfaction, relief. The story had “legs” and it consumed the media for days.


It is no wonder then, that other, less dramatic deaths missed the paper that week. Because on that same weekend, my friend John Deak was found dead. Not one word about him in the paper. No news story about the circumstances of finding this homeless man’s body, nor how he died. No obituary. Until this one.

John “Boxcar” Deak lived on the streets of Columbia for most of the past several years. His life on the street was broken up a bit by stints in the county jail, mostly for trespassing or stealing alcohol from convenience stores. He spent a winter-long sojourn at St. Francis House a couple years ago. We would have kept him with us longer but the call of the bottle was stronger than the call of a warm bed. It was more complicated than that of course, but addiction and despair are always more complicated than they seem on the surface.

John was born in 1961. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. I’m not sure when he landed here in Columbia, but I’ve known him for years. He would manage to stay sober for a couple weeks at a time and stay with us at St. Francis House until he fell off the wagon again. I remember giving him a blanket on the street more than once when he was too drunk to stay with us. I remember him coming in to eat at Loaves and Fishes, and I remember his simple thankfulness.

My last conversations with John took place when he was living on the street. We had a couple of brief interactions when I was serving at the soup kitchen or stopping by during day center hours (the day center is in the same location as the soup kitchen). He was trying to stay sober enough to have someplace to come in out of the weather and get something to eat, but every day was a struggle. I touched base with him by accident a couple months before he died. I had driven up Lakeview Ave, but then I realized that I couldn’t make a left turn onto Rangeline. I turned my car into the parking lot of the Motel 7 to turn around, just as John stepped out of one of the rooms. I waved to him, and for some reason, decided to get out of the car to say hello.

One of John’s street friends who “gets a check” had rented a room at the Motel 7 and invited John to stay with him. He was glad to see me and of course, in typical John fashion, apologized for having been drinking. But it was good to see that he was out of the cold weather for a few days. He looked like he had showered. His hair and beard looked like a red lion’s mane around his head and shoulders. When he stayed with us he was clean shaven and his hair was trimmed up and just reached his collar. We talked for a few minutes, and then I said I had to go. He gave me a hug and thanked me for talking to him.  I didn’t know that would be one of the last times I saw him.

John, we hardly knew you in life. The world would like to ignore you in death, but you are not forgotten. John Deak carried the heavy burden of addiction through his life until he finally laid it down for good. He was a pilgrim on life’s road, but his journey has moved beyond where we can see. In the words of Steve Earle, I hope we meet again on some bright highway. John, until I see you, fare thee well.

A tale of two sheriffs: the politics of the crosshairs.

Before last Saturday (Jan 8), when someone mentioned seeing the sheriff from Arizona on TV, they did not mean Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. They meant Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, infamous for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and his disrespectful and occasionally dangerous treatment of inmates at the Maricopa County Jail in Phoenix.

Because of his “get tough” tactics, such as making inmates live in tents in the desert in the deadly summer months in the Valley of the Sun, he is the darling of both right wing radio and TV commentators, and "regular folks" who are “fed up” with crime and criminal behavior. Some of his programs, such as dying all the underwear pink to reduce the likelihood that inmates will steal county issued drawers upon release were goofy but did make a fiscal and political point. His fervent anti-immigrant rhetoric, however, places him far outside what most of us believe to be the mainstream of US society. And his antics have kept him in office for decades, so someone must think they work.

Compare and contrast, then, Sheriff Dupnik. He is also a long time public servant, who has actually been in office longer than Arpaio. Arpaio was first elected in 1992, while Dupnik has been the sheriff of Pima County since 1980.

Dupnik is no liberal. He is a major player in law enforcement, and a fan of the technological advances in law enforcement over the past generation. But while Dupnik garners the occasional headline for his work, he does not seem to seek the spotlight for the purpose of self aggrandizement. Dupnik is not afraid to speak his mind. He has opposed Arizona’s draconian anti-immigrant law, even in the face of threats.

Whatever civil rights pluses and minuses appear on Dupnik’s resume, his call for an end to the vitriolic and violent rhetoric that has invaded our public discourse last week showed courage and conviction. He carefully refrained from making statements that would further prejudice Mr. Loughner’s rights to trial in connection with this tragedy; he did not call for vengeance. He called for justice and for sorrow and for reflection, which are the best precursors of dialogue, which is the foundation for peaceful change.

I expect that, to the extent talking heads and policy makers engage in thoughtful reflection, they will be glad to have Sheriff Dupnik’s words to hand their virtual hats on. We don’t yet know why Mr. Loughner acted as he did, what demons or dementors played a role. We don’t know if the politics of the crosshairs had anything to do with his actions.

But we don’t know it didn’t.

And we do know that, whatever Jared Loughner’s story is, there are other weaker personalities and mentally unstable persons in our country who seek validation through the words they hear on the radio and the TV, and what they read on the Net. But we will never achieve a peaceful society if we build our government on campaigns stocked with violent images and rhetoric. We live in a society where our speech is even more violent than our headlines. Our country has devolved to a place where some people believe it is okay to treat other human beings as less than human. And whether Loughner’s violence was triggered by violent political rhetoric or the atmosphere in which it thrives, we must all consider that words, in Rep. Giffords’ own words, “have consequences.”

Sheriff Dupnik recognized that, and, for that, he deserves our thanks.