This is a guest article written by my daughter, Rhianna, and her FOCUS teammate, Peter. Rhianna and Peter are Focus Missionaries at the United State Air Force Academy and, over the summer, they got into a conversation about laughing at absurd things. We live in strange times where everything is touchy. For me, growing up in the 80s and 90s, people laughed pretty heartily at stereotypes, oddities, and absurdities, and I think we were healthier people when we weren't so sensitive. I am a person that laughs pretty frequently about many things. I laugh at myself quite often and I enjoy telling stories about my mishaps and foot-in-the-mouth moments. I do this because I enjoy making people laugh. I have taught my children to look around them and notice the world. Watch people, look at them. People are interesting and their quirks, idiosyncrasies, and mannerisms can be funny. I don't know about you, but the world feels very serious--somber and dark even--and we are told that laughing at silly or absurd things is always wrong. But is it? Rhianna and Peter seek to answer that question in this article.

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‍Rhianna: One day a few years back, I went with my friend to a baby shower at her church. She warned me beforehand that there would be a guy there that pretended to be blind. This was something I was curious to see. So, we arrived at the baby shower, chatted with the sweet ladies, set down our gifts, and grabbed a plate of snacks and sweets. Well, as it would happen, the "blind" guy sat down right across from me and, yes, he really pretended like he couldn’t see anything. When we were chatting, he would, at first, look straight into my eyes, and then quickly avert them to staring at the side of my face, as if he didn’t know quite exactly were my eyes were located. And he’d stare straight into the wall behind me as he clinked his plate with his fork trying to stab his food. But right when he thought no one was looking, he’d look down really quickly, scoop up some food, and then go back to gazing at the wall. I especially knew it was all fake when a little girl ran into the room and waved at him. He waved back and smiled. A few days later, my friend saw him walking with a blind-man's can outside on the sidewalk.

Another time, while still in college, my friend and I went swing dancing one night. There was a guy there who thought he was truly a great dancer but was clearly blind to the truth. Well, at one point, he asked my friend to dance, and she agreed. In an effort to woo her, he dipped my friend, dropped her, pulled her up and, in true Gaston fashion said, “Just follow my lead.” Apparently, after hearing from several other ladies, my friend wasn't the first to be dropped.

The thing is, is that I see funny and odd things everywhere: 

• The other day there was a lady at church who sang so loudly and so off-key that she was turning heads. In fact, she does this every week.  

• At the pool there was a lady who was VIOLENTLY chewing her gum. No mercy for the Trident.  

• On the street, there was a grown man walking around in a onesie.  

• I knew a guy who baked and ate a loaf of bread every day.

• My mom has a weird distaste for spherical foods. We all tease her about it relentlessly.

P&R: What is the common denominator between all of these stories? Well, quite frankly, it’s people doing weird things—which we all do at some point in our lives. We truly believe that people with odd quirks and funny “isms” actually enhance life and give us something to smile and laugh at. Most of the time it’s completely normal for people to have a fluke moment.  

But thinking these stories are weird or silly isn’t wrong—it's completely natural. This is what certain researchers call “The Benign Violation Theory,” which suggests that we think something is “weird” when an action or belief isn’t “normal” or “how the world should be.” For this theory to work, the abnormal action must not be "too tame” or “aggressive.”

Maybe we’re being judgmental. Is it possible that we’re approaching this all incorrectly? Is this hurtful to other people? This is worth thinking about.  

Rhianna: Lately, when I’ve giggled at the absurdities that I notice in my surroundings, many people have responded with a sigh and a downcast look, “That makes me sad.” This response has continued to throw me off, because it feels like an ingenuine response. Something ridiculous is happening right here...that really makes you sad? I’ve found that people usually respond like this when they think that I am being judgmental towards the person doing the funny thing (such as a person wearing a mask in their car when they are all alone).  

P&R: We genuinely don’t want to do something wrong. We want to have a pure heart and be careful not to mock people. In our current culture, it is seen as rude and immoral to laugh at something someone did when they did not mean to be funny.  But we must admit that we don’t want to completely disregard the oddities of humanity and stifle an honest laugh. We can’t pretend like we don’t notice these funny stories.  

This all begs the question – 1. Is judging always bad? 2. Are we actually even judging in these circumstances? And 3. When someone is doing something ridiculous in public, how should we respond? Do we laugh, have pity, work the best that we possibly can to have a neutral response? With that in mind, we went on a hunt to understand what the Church and Saints have taught about “judging others” and humor.

What The Church Says About Judgment

Did Christ really say to never judge anyone? Well, no, in Matthew 7:1-5, He tells us that we need to take the logs out of our own eyes so that we can help to take the speck out of our brother's eye. This means that noticing and even pointing out something that someone is doing wrong is actually a good thing! If done properly, it is an act of charity, because correcting your brother’s behavior might be necessary for his salvation. We must be careful not judge the state of someone's soul—for only God can do that—but we do have permission to judge another's behavior.

However, if we judge another's behavior, we must make sure that we are not elevating our own perfection above someone else’s action if we have our own imperfections. So, if Billy is addicted to pornography, it wouldn’t make any sense for him to condemn Bobby for looking at porn without addressing his own issues first. It requires humility to seek a level of understanding of the situation. Consuming pornography is a serious sin, so if you choose to judge your loved one about it, it must come out of charity and the desire to truly help them.

In fact, even the Catechism encourages fraternal correction—provided that we avoid rash judgement, give people the benefit of the doubt and try to understand them, and then correct with love. (CCC 2477-2478)

Now, what if the person isn’t even doing something necessarily sinful, just a bit strange or abnormal? Well, then, the logic would follow that it is okay to point out these things as long as you are okay with someone else pointing out your own strange actions or are aware of it in yourself.

Please do not think that you are perfect yourself and someone else is not, as if their silly action is binding on their soul and makes the situation “sad”. It can be a source of pride to feel pity for someone that’s just doing something funny. It can be easy to slip into thinking that you’re better than that person because “I would never do what they did.” We can't fool ourselves; we all do funny, weird, and absurd things at times.

What A Saint Says About Humor

As with any moral or philosophical dilemma, let’s see what St. Thomas Aquinas says about humor. In his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas first questions “whether there is a sin in lack of mirth?” (Mirth is the emotional response to humor, aka laughter). Aquinas says “I answer that, human affairs whatever is against reason is a sin. Now it is against reason for a man to be burdensome to others, by offering no pleasure to others, and by hindering their enjoyment.” (ST. II-II. Q168. A4.)

Aquinas goes on to say: “Since, however, mirth is useful for the sake of the rest and pleasures it affords; and since, in human life, pleasure and rest are not in quest for their own sake, but for the sake of operation, as stated in Ethic. x, 6, it follows that lack of mirth is less sinful than excess thereof.  Following Aquinas’ response to this question, we can agree that laughter as an effect from humor should be harnessed with prudence regarding the various situations. However, we are not saying that humor and laughter are appropriate regarding grave topics that are normalized in today's culture, such as abortion, sexual acts, suicide, and so on.

Practically, these teachings from Aquinas and The Church make sense.

Pretend that you're involved in an individualistic or team sport such as gymnastics or football. You want to succeed and do your best in the sport, but there’s one problem. Your technique is terrible, and it will prevent you from excelling. We can use whatever technique we want but the hard truth is that there are rules and proper ways to do things that work better than others. (e.g. catching a football with your eyes closed, why the heck would you do that?) Players have coaches and other teammates for many reasons. A great benefit of them is that they can critique you on things that you are doing wrong. They care about you and want you to succeed so they will help break your bad habits as best as they can.  

It would be a travesty if your coach pitied your shortcomings and didn’t give you any real corrections because they don’t want to judge you. Fearful of hurting your feelings, they come to you and say in a sad tone, “I see you and I know this is hard for you, but maybe you can do a little better.” This is 1. not helpful, and 2. makes the situation worse by adding the effect that this is a real problem and is unfixable, which is completely false, unless maybe you have a broken arm and can’t catch the ball. The point is that it is more charitable for the coach or teammate to correct your shortcomings or improper techniques. A terrific way of doing this is being honest and joking about the technique because it looks stupid and inefficient. Aquinas reminds us that this is used for the sake of operation. This will bring positivity to the situation because what is abnormal is being corrected in a manner that shows that it’s okay to make mistakes! Humor is a sign that the situation is not life or death and can be fixed.  

Peter: For example, on my college lacrosse team, I would do this weird thing where I ran like a horse and bobbed my head when running hard. It looked ridiculous on film! My teammates and coaches would joke non-stop about it. I knew this wasn’t a serious problem due to their laughter. Since I could see their point of view, I could see what they saw with the way I bobbed my head like a horse. I knew I needed to change it, so I sought help and critique in an effort to improve my game. If it wasn’t for my team making fun of the way I ran and critiquing me with humor, I would still run like an idiot today and wouldn’t have played lacrosse as well. They weren’t making fun of who I was, but what I was doing by my actions. They judged me in a good way.

What Does This All Mean?

‍P&R: Judgment calls are okay and often good. Whether it’s a judgment call on someone doing something silly or inherently immoral—it’s natural to make the judgment call. What's not natural is to have an inappropriate response or zero response.

If would be an inappropriate response to be “sad” over hearing that my mom has a spherical food "phobia." To be sure, though, you are still making a judgment call--one of pity. My mom would way rather you laugh at and tease her about it than to exhibit pity or have no response.

So, what’s the answer to our original question? Well, yes, we are making a judgment call to these funny, abnormal, and strange actions. And that’s not the end of the world.

Something else to note is sometimes laughing at people and pointing out a funny thing that they did to them is much better than the “I see you” mantra that has been circling around. “I see you” is fluffy and meaningless. But pointing out someone's funny quirks to someone in jest is ACTUALLY seeing them because that means that you’re noticing specific qualities in the person—even if they are a stranger.  

Rhianna: For example, my mom was volunteering in a church kitchen for a week, and EVERY morning, a man would come in and make popcorn for his breakfast. And then he’d stand and gobble down his popcorn while he watched the room. Well, on the last day, she laughed and pointed out, “Dang, you are just a popcorn-eatin’ fool!” Did he feel hurt? No! Once he realized that she didn’t say that out of annoyance but rather a hope for connection, he also laughed, opened up about how much he loves popcorn, and then went on to tell her so much about his life story. Because she laughed at his little popcorn quirk, he actually felt seen and cared for.

In conclusion: Notice the funny things, laugh at them, love the person who is making you laugh, and stop with the pity parties.

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