Posts tagged human

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The only human emotions that we can attribute to God.

“God delights.

God is always rejoicing and doing so with a single and simple delight.

In fact, it is appropriate to say that love and joy are the only human emotions that we can attribute literally to God.”  Thomas Aquinas

…so much more than Turkish delight.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the only human emotions that we can attribute to God.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The healing humor of being human.


“Humor, in a definition that reflects itself, “arises from the perception of the juxtaposition of incongruity.”  

We find funny the placing together of things that do not belong together: the portly, top-hated, distinguishedly pompous gentleman slipping on a banana peel, for example.  Humor and laughter may, of course, be aggressive and cruel - especially when the other is objectified rather than identified with.  But when humor’s incongruity is recognized as inherent - a reflection of the essential contradiction of being human with which one identifies - there can be no more healing, whole-ing, experience than the laughter that marks identifying acceptance of that paradoxical incongruity.

Such laughter characterizes meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, revealing much about A.A.’s healing power.  The stories told at these meetings exquisitely demonstrate the essential incongruity of the human condition, the humor inherent in being human.


Such humor and the laughter that greets it are never aimed at others as objects, but at the contradiction within self illuminated by the human experience described.  A.A. laughter expresses appreciation of the insights into self garnered from the experience of others with whom one identifies.  

Thus, humor within Alcoholics Anonymous witnesses to A.A. members’ acceptance of the paradoxical nature of the human condition - essentially limited but inherently striving for the unlimited.  In attempting and claiming to attain transcendence by their use of alcohol, alcoholics come to touch - even to wallow in - the depths of their own finitude.

Recognizing the incongruity between that endeavor and its results frees from both.  Such humor is neither veiled aggression nor mere compensation; it rather manifests the central animus of A.A.’s understanding of human nature.  The human essence resides in the human condition’s conjunction of infinite thirst with essential limited capacity.  Acceptance of this reality comes easily to the alcoholic who understands her alcoholism; the phenomenon of alcoholism replicates the essence of the human condition.”Ernest Kurtz, Shame & Guilt



…such laughter does characterize the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. 

…and the stories told at these meetings exquisitely demonstrate the essential incongruity of the human condition, the humor inherent in being human.  A.A. laughter expresses appreciation of the insights into self garnered from the experience of others with whom one identifies.  



…such laughter should be characterized at home and church.

…and the stories told amongst family and friends.  






Humor heals.  

Laughter liberates.


I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the healing humor of being human.