Showing posts with label Laughter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laughter. Show all posts

Friday, November 23, 2018

To what extent are you mindful and a creature of habit?

Two old pirates were sitting at a bar, talking about their adventures.

“So,” said one pirate, “how’d ye get that metal hook for a hand?”

“We were ransacking a merchant ship in the West Indies when I got into a sword fight with the ship’s captain and he cut off my hand.”

“Fantastic!” said the first pirate. “And how’d ye get that peg leg?”

“We were ransacking a schooner off Haiti when I got into hand-to-hand combat with the schooner’s captain. He swung his sword with such force that he cut off my leg.”

“Amazing!” said the first pirate. “And how’d ye get that patch over your right eye?”

“I was standing on the deck of my ship when a seagull crapped on my face.” “That’s how you lost your eye?” asked the first pirate.

 “Well, it was my first day with the hook.”

Javna, Gordon & John. Life Is a Joke: 100 Life Lessons (with Punch Lines) (pp. 3-4). Workman Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.



Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations. Mindfulness is a sign of spiritual growth. If you ask most people, "What makes you tick?" They cannot tell you. Most people do not know themselves very well at all. Self knowledge is in short supply.

UUs also covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person and yet seldom ask, "What is this idea of the 'person' referred to in the principle?" Is the 'person' a conditioned animal which behaves out of conditioned habit or is the 'person' aware?

The pirate in the joke is not self aware but acts out of conditioning. Laughter, especially ego denigrating laughter is a sign of spiritual maturity.

Unitarian Univeralism; A Way Of Life Ministries promotes comedy and laughter as an activity of its ministry. Members of our Order are Holy Fools. Know any good jokes?

Friday, July 6, 2018

Did you ever think that life is absurd?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and then get tired of the search. They are looking in the wrong places. Truth and meaning is not external, it is internal. And strangely and unexpectedly, the primary activity of the search is forgiveness.

Forgiveness, as the term is used in spiritual discourse, is not the pardoning of an offense, or asking to be excused for a harmful act or mistake for which we have regret and may now feel ashamed. Forgiveness, in the spiritual sense, is the recognition that all the drama and nonsense on the path of the ego is not real. It is a figment of our  imagination.

Jesus says as they are killing Him, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," and they didn't and we are still talking about it 2000 years later. We could say the same for most of the stuff that happens to us and that we do to others. "Father, forgive us for we know not what we do," or as my 13 year old friend, Jackson, says, "It's ridiculous, just ridiculous!" And Jackson is expressing Jesus' forgiveness. Jackson and Jesus have the same understanding and Love.

Practicing forgiveness is this shifting of gears from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit. It is a rising above and not taking the drama seriously. It is a deep and hearty laughter at the absurdity and incongruity of life.


Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Have people become the tool of their tools?

Henry David Thoreau was correct when he said that people have become the tools of their tools.

Harry Schoen was killed by a car when he stepped off the curb into its oncoming path while walking by texting.

His smart phone actually made him dumb and killed him.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

UUAWOL laughter

Son to father: "Hey, dad, can you spell Mississippi?"

Father: "The river or the state?"



Daughter to mother: "Mom, is god a boy or girl?"

Mom: "Neither, dear. God is a verb not a noun."



Laughing our way into heaven

Osho says,

 "Religion is dead without laughter. It becomes alive only when you can have a total laugh, a passionate, intense laugh, so that it dances in all your cells, it vibrates in your whole being. Then it becomes something bigger than you, so that you are just a small thing in it; it surrounds you like an aura and you disappear into it.

 That’s exactly what happens in laughter: your ego disappears. It may not disappear in your prayer; your prayer may even strengthen it. The prayerful become holier-than-thou. It will not go away because of your authorities and asceticism – it is even more solid and concrete. But when you have a good laugh, the ego is no longer there. For a moment a window opens, for a moment the ego is not there. And when the ego is not there, you are.

 Osho. First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously p.51 Osho Media International.

  Editor's note:

 I agree with Osho. Without laughter religion is dead.

UUAWOL will be posting more articles that hopefully will make readers laugh.

More than laugh, I hope they will help the reader see things in a little different way.

 There is laughter that puts people down and makes the laugher feel better about him/herself at the targets expense. UUAWOL will be avoiding this kind of laughter.

What UUAWOL is after is the laughter that recognizes the absurdity and incongruity of our thoughts and minds. It is with this recogntion that we get a glimpse beyond the ego.

It is in sharing these kinds of jokes that the laughter doubles and becomes even more precious.
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