This letter to the editor may not address any current issues, but I think it nevertheless is applicable to all issues in this editorial section.
Church people, of which there are many in our community, tell us that we humans are created in the image and likeness of their God. According to their faith it took their God five days to create everything else, but on the sixth day he created us and saw that it was “good,” indeed, “very good”!
So what is it that makes us so very good and different from all other creation? What is it that makes us humans image God? It is the fact that we can think, reason, make plans, talk about it – and sometimes even laugh about it!
No other living creature has this “very good” ability. To laugh is to find things funny, things that are not just exactly what they are meant or presented to be. The ability to laugh is a hallmark of a thinking being and must therefore also be a hallmark of us being created in the image and likeness of the Thinker in Chief!
In church we celebrate our likeness to God in song, prayer and sermon. But we are often told by the church people that it is not polite to laugh in church!
How can that be if their god created us to laugh and deemed it to be very good? Is laughing not godlike?
Along with laughing at things comes the ability to laugh at oneself! So if that too is part of the image, it follows that God also has the ability to laugh at himself. I think we need to nurture that image much more. We need to laugh at ourselves and not take ourselves so seriously. If God can laugh at himself and all his doings, why can’t we?
Jake Hjorth
Grand Marais
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