Does God have a sense of humor? Growing up in the Bible belt of Indiana, religion was a serious affair. I remember swinging my patent-leather-clad feet from the edge of the pew and making little hammocks out of my mom’s handkerchief while the minister seemed to drone on and on for hours. Apparently, there was the obligatory joke because every once in a great while the adults would politely chuckle.

I moved away from traditional religion in my 20s while still searching for answers about God. When I first started to attend classes with my spiritual teacher, there was plenty of talking and meditation and prayer, but there was also a great deal of laughter. In fact, I remember my teacher saying once that God has a sense of humor. I nearly fell over, I was so stunned by that idea.

This was not the God I grew up with. You know, the white man with the flowing beard sitting in the clouds, the one who could turn people into salt, or rain pestilence down on entire populations because of something their leader did or didn’t do, or ask a father to sacrifice his son to prove his devotion.

Who was this God with a sense of humor? It was the beginning of my journey of the stripping away of what I consider now to be false notions of God.

I suppose many people would think that if there is a God and she or he has a sense of humor, it would be some kind of cruel joke because just look at the state the world is in. On the other hand, to find a reason to laugh and be joyful even in the midst of great suffering is a gift that humans have been given. If one believes in a higher power, it is logical that we are simply tapping into something we share with that mysterious presence.

Of course, there are people who use a perhaps more sarcastic sense of humor to belittle others, to exclude others (as in the inside joke), to avoid responsibility, to interrupt sacred moments, etc. This is not the kind of humor I envision as “godly.” Like any great gift, it depends on how it is used.

To me a sense of humor can be one of the greatest tools for cultivating humility. Like my perception of the religion I grew up with, the ego tends to take itself very seriously. To be able to see our own foibles and transgressions and laugh at them is to loosen up that very serious hold the ego wants to have on our own perceptions of ourselves. Laughter lightens the load of being who we are, of being disappointed in ourselves and others, of living in a world that sometimes makes no sense at all to us.

I can’t claim that my conversations with God or prayers or meditations bring me to laughing out loud, though I often feel a deep sense of quiet joy. I did once have a moment of solitude in which I did laugh out loud and which somehow seemed divinely inspired. I was standing looking out at my deck and the gushing brook that is the boundary of my backyard when simultaneously the song “The Typewriter” came on NPR and a squirrel leaped up on the snowy railing of my deck and proceeded to do what I can only describe as a dance to the exact rhythm of the song on the radio. The squirrel seemed to be looking at me the entire time and the moment the song was over he leaped into the trees and was gone. I did laugh out loud and thanked the squirrel and divine nature for showing me once again that surprises and connections are everywhere when we take the time to see them.

Though I don’t often laugh out loud when I feel the most deeply spiritually connected, I do associate a great sense of humor with people I’ve met who exude a spiritual presence. The hours and years of spiritual practice and meditation seem to unlock a special kind of sense of humor. I am thinking of the Dali Lama, who seems to laugh a lot whenever I hear him speak. I once took a class from his brother, who laughed more than any adult I have ever known, and mostly he was laughing at himself. I am also thinking of my interfaith friends, and some of the Catholic monks and nuns I have met who seem to share a wild kind of sense of humor grounded in the spirit. It is as if the commitment to silence, solitude, prayer and a deep inner connection to the divine can unlock a way of being with people that is ripe with humor and the sheer joy of being alive.

One of my favorite spiritual giants, who I am quite certain was intimately familiar with the divine sense of humor was Hafiz, a 14th century Sufi poet. This is one of my favorite poems of his:

Ten Thousand Idiots

It is always a danger

to aspirants

On the

Path

When they begin

To believe and

Act

As if the ten thousand idiots

Who so long ruled

And lived

Inside

Have all packed their bags

And skipped town

Or

Died

The story is told about my great grandfather, who left the strict Apostolic church of his family. When told he was going to hell, he replied that it was fine with him because he would rather be in hell with all his friends than in heaven with the members of the church.

I feel the same way about God. Though there are certainly many things in this world that must be taken very seriously, to imagine a creator of this world who has no sense of humor is, to me, a God I cannot live with.

The Rev. Cathy Grigsby is an Interfaith minister who teaches at the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine and is the co-founder and coordinator of the Interfaith Ministers of New England. She can be contacted at: cgrigsby@myfairpoint.net.