A few years ago, I was at a gathering of missionaries
serving in Africa. Sitting around the table
after supper, the person next to me started telling his own stories of tough experiences
since moving to the continent. Going
around the table and sharing, most of them had served less than five years as a
cross-cultural missionary. So when at
last it came my turn, I remember the expressions on their faces as I shared
some of what has happened to us.
Our mission team has served in northern Mozambique since
2003 and that has given us plenty of experiences to laugh and cry about. Beyond the “normal” or “expected”
difficulties of struggling to learn language and culture, leaving behind family
and friends as well as enduring sickness and sunburn, malaria and dysentery, right
at the beginning or our time in Africa, we were falsely accused and ended up
living in exile for over a year. Our mission
team experienced a painful split. We
felt abandoned by some colleagues and others fell into sin. And, at the time of this retreat, I was still
in the midst of processing a recent difficult event: a home invasion. Needless to say, that was a lot to drop on a
group of people that I barely knew.
It was interesting and encouraging, though, to see the way
the group handled all of our negative experiences. We could have cried, but instead, amazingly,
we spent the meal laughing… a lot. While
still recognizing the seriousness of what each of us had gone through, the
group was not allowing the pain to have the final word or authority. Instead of giving in to despair or
desolation, the tone was that of laughter – there was an appropriate amount of levity.
In reflecting on that memorable dinner conversation, I’ve
realized that being able to laugh at tough experiences has propped me up at
multiple points along the journey. Joking
with my teammates (as well as praying with them!) about mystery illnesses helped
with the fact that we are so far from quality medical care. And humor has been
especially important in processing our interactions with a toxic church leader
who has caused so many problems over the years. At one point when it looked like this man’s
efforts to get us kicked out of the country just might have turned out to be
effective, I remember laughing with Chad and Jeremy about different silly
employment opportunities that might be in our future. In the life of our
mission team, humor has been a very effective release valve for dealing with
stress and struggles.
Gallows Humor in Medicine
As I have tried to think critically about my own experience of
gallows humor, an article by Katie Watson has been very helpful. She looks at the ethics of the way medical
doctors use gallows humor to cope with their own encounters with pain and
death. The following are quotes from: “Gallows
Humor in Medicine” by Katie Watson The
Hastings Center Report. 2011; 41(5):37-45. -->
“Gallows humor is humor that treats serious,
frightening, or painful subject matter in a light or satirical way. Joking
about death fits the term most literally, but making fun of life-threatening,
disastrous, or terrifying situations fits the category as well.”
“Gallows humor is not a feel-good, Patch Adams
kind of humor, but it is not synonymous with all cruel humor, either. As one
physician put it, the difference between gallows humor and derogatory humor is
like ‘the difference between whistling as you go through the graveyard and
kicking over the gravestones.’” (D. Wear et al., "Derogatory and Cynical
Humor Directed Towards Patients: Views of Residents and Attending
Doctors," Medical Education 43 (2009): 34–41, at 39.)
“Viktor
Frankl describes concentration camp prisoners who "cracked jokes"
about their horrible circumstances: ‘Humor was another of the soul's weapons in
the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than
anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to
rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.’" (V. Frankl,
Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1984), 56, 54.)
Philosopher Ted Cohen argues that sometimes we
joke not for distance but for connection. If you laugh at my joking, it means
that we are alike in some way, that we see the world similarly. (T. Cohen,
Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters (Chicago, Ill.: University of
Chicago Press, 2001), 29. Cohen's book addresses scripted jokes, but many of
his insights apply to spontaneous joking as well. In Cohen's terms, humor
serves the vital psychological and social function of confirming or cultivating
intimacy, and establishing or reinforcing community. (Ibid., 28–31)). Another function of joking Cohen considers is
acknowledging and integrating painful absurdities: "When we laugh at a
true absurdity, we simultaneously confess that we cannot make sense of it and
that we accept it. Thus laughter is an expression of our humanity, our finite
capacity, our ability to live with what we cannot understand or subdue. We can
dwell within the incomprehensible without dying from fear or going mad."
(Ibid. 41.)
Kuhlman argues that gallows humor "offers a
way of being sane in an insane place." (T.L. Kuhlman, "Gallows Humor
for a Scaffold Setting: Managing Aggressive Patients on a Maximum-Security
Forensic Unit," Hospital and Community Psychiatry 39, no. 10 (1988): 1085.
Joan Sayre came to a compatible conclusion in
her study of psychiatric unit meetings: gallows humor was one part of "the
basic social process of facing a series of ultimately unresolvable
problems." (J. Sayre, "The Use of Aberrant Medical Humor by
Psychiatric Unit Staff," Issues in Mental Health Nursing 22 (2001):
669–89, at 674)
This article discusses the way doctors use gallows humor in
positive, helpful ways as well as describing the dangers of using gallows humor
with patients who are not ready for that kind of levity. Watson believes that gallows humor serves an important
function within the medical community
as a way to cope with working in the midst of death. At best, it is a kind of “insider” talk that
allows doctors to process tragedy in a healthy way, allowing them to continue
to serve.
Gallows Humor,
Humility and Missions
I’ve seen many missionaries naturally lean on gallows humor
as a coping mechanism, but I think it is helpful to consider and recognize the
benefits of using it appropriately (laughing at tough situations as well as, or
instead of, crying).
In order to do that, one of the main adjustments we may need
to make is to not take ourselves too seriously. Without an appropriate levity
about himself or herself, the missionary will not be able to discern levity or
irony in the world. There is an
important link between humor and humility.
In the introduction to Erwin McManus’ book An Unstoppable Force, Rick Warren talks about the importance of self-deprecating
humor. He says, “It’s an enduring trait
that I’ve found in all pastors who are greatly used by God. Too many Christian leaders take themselves
way too seriously and don’t take God seriously enough. Humor and humility come from the same root
word” (7).
In important counsel for preachers, Long recommends:
“'Never lose a sense of humor about yourself.’ Perhaps that line ought to be engraved on a plaque and placed on the back of the pulpit alongside the traditional quotation from the Gospel of John, ‘We would see Jesus.’ The verse from John would remind us to take the task of preaching the gospel of Christ seriously; the phrase about a sense of humor would encourage us not to take ourselves too seriously while we are doing that task. Moreover, a sense of humor in worship is not only a sign of humility but also of the gospel’s liberating power. ‘With Easter,’ states Moltmann, ‘the laughter of the redeemed… begins.’ Because God in Christ has broken the power of sin and death, Christian congregations and their preachers are free to laugh at themselves and they can also laugh at the empty gods of pride and greed. They can mock hell and dance on the grave of death and sin.” (Long, The Witness of Preaching, 8-9)
If anyone can have the courage to laugh at death it should
be followers of Jesus. As Willard notes,
“Jesus’ attitude toward death is frankly quite cavalier” (The Great Omission,
222). And Paul, our model missionary,
while facing disease, difficulties and his own demise was not afraid to use
humor to taunt and mock the enemy of death (1 Cor. 15:55).
Having an appropriate level of humility about our own
humanity allows us to appreciate correctly our role in the mission of God. “We
do the very best we know, we work hard, and even self-sacrificially. But we do not carry the load, and our ego is
not involved in any way with the mission and the ministry. In our love of Jesus and his Father, we truly
have abandoned our life to him. Our life
is not an object of deep concern” (The Great Omission, 101).
Conclusion:
Humor can be a useful mechanism for finding a deeper
understanding for what is happening around us and our place in the drama. Peterson says that “some insights are only
accessible while laughing. Others only arrive by indirection” (The
Contemplative Pastor, 115). And gallows
humor can clear the clutter of tension and stress on the path and make a way for
perseverance. “We cannot alter the tragic character of human life, but that we
can endure and so prevail.” (Rowan Greer, Broken Lights and Mended Lives, 206)
Watson comments that the power in gallows humor is that
while we admit our own frailty in the situation, that levity allows us to look
forward: “In a situation that (is) horrific and absurd, a joke is the rock you
throw after the bad guy's already gone—an admission of loss, and a promise to
fight again another day.” Like medical doctors, cross-cultural missionaries end
up experiencing and witnessing a lot of tragedy and gallows humor can be a way
to both hold onto an appropriate amount of personal humility as well as use
irony and humor to highlight the way that God’s kingdom could possibly poke
through in the future.
Gallows humor treats serious (or grave!) matters with the
medicine of laughter. And at its best, that
laughter can help bring us back from despair and call to mind the ways that the
powers of death and decay will eventually die themselves. Gallows humor can help us bring the irony
before God, asking our true Lord to redeem what by all accounts should be weak
and dead.
What do you think? Any
thoughts on how gallows humor has been a blessing in your life or ministry?
Grace and Peace,
Alan
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