I labored in the salt mines of academia for 30 years and was still always shocked when I was admonished for not taking things seriously enough because I was not pretending to be dead. Oh, and if you think you are going to sneak a little joke into an academic publication, well…
I was/am an Interfaith Minister and did 250 funerals ( I was a Chaplain at a retirement community). I was known to do a "damn good funeral'. I would make the congregation laugh and then cry and then leave them laughing. Death and funerals should be a wake up call to live...before we die! Memento mori!
Thanks for this column. I talk a lot about humor and grief and have a great tombstone photo that features carvings of the Three Stooges and the epitaph, "Don't Weep, Laugh! It Feels Better." We don't understand that laughter embeds in the amygdala (not just trauma) and when you remember someone with smiles and laughter, the memory is sharper. That, along with the Diabolical Baby Laugh (story for another day) support the fact that Laughter Isn't Optional.
I labored in the salt mines of academia for 30 years and was still always shocked when I was admonished for not taking things seriously enough because I was not pretending to be dead. Oh, and if you think you are going to sneak a little joke into an academic publication, well…
I was/am an Interfaith Minister and did 250 funerals ( I was a Chaplain at a retirement community). I was known to do a "damn good funeral'. I would make the congregation laugh and then cry and then leave them laughing. Death and funerals should be a wake up call to live...before we die! Memento mori!
Thanks for this column. I talk a lot about humor and grief and have a great tombstone photo that features carvings of the Three Stooges and the epitaph, "Don't Weep, Laugh! It Feels Better." We don't understand that laughter embeds in the amygdala (not just trauma) and when you remember someone with smiles and laughter, the memory is sharper. That, along with the Diabolical Baby Laugh (story for another day) support the fact that Laughter Isn't Optional.