The Priceless Gift

June 1980
Port Charlotte

also May 2, 1982
Lakeland

The Priceless Gift

I want to speak to you today about the Priceless Gift. Without this priceless gift, going on courageously and eagerly in the face of what seems to be manifold and unending tragedy and disaster would be difficult, perhaps impossible (W. Berand Wolfe - ) “For lack of this quality men kill each other because they disagree about God, religion, or the ownership of land or because they can’t endure another’s political doctrine. It is the saving human virtue without which there is little use in living.”

When we are wise, we seek a balanced life. Without the Priceless Gift, we lack one of the qualities of balance. Like a precisely-machined gear which has been deprived of one or more of its teeth, we swing aimlessly or jam, instead of meshing with all the other gears of living that can produce a wholesome life.

If we lack the price less gift, we get a wrong perspective on things as did the patient of a medical specialist in a story told by comedian Jackie Gleason:

A business man went to a medical specialist, had a complete check-up and received a bill for $250.

“Your fee is entirely out of line,” he complained to the doctor. “Anyway, business is so bad now that I just couldn’t afford to pay you that amount.”

“All right,” said the MD, “make it $150.”

“That’s still too much. I’m not making so much now, I still have a wife and five kids to feed.”

“Okay,” said the doctor, “make it $100.”

This went on until the fee was down to $5.

“Look,” said the specialist, “you know I’m a leading specialist and I have to charge high prices. Why did you come to me in the first place?”

“Where my health is concerned,” replied the man, “I never stint on money.”

It is quite easy to get the wrong view of things. There was a little girl who was shopping with her mother. The bags and parcels were many. While they were waiting for the bus, mother gave the little girl the coins for the bus fare so the mother wouldn’t have to put down the packages after entering the bus. The bus stopped, they boarded, [and] the little girl gave the bus driver the fares, saying “I’m paying the fares because my mother is loaded.”

What is the Priceless Gift? Many years ago (1951) on the campus of Williams College, on a June commencement, the President of Williams read the citation in awarding an honorary degree of humane letters. He said, “James Grover Thurber, Doctor of Humane Letters, cartoonist, playwright, foremost humorist of our day and nation, he has brought to a troubled America the priceless gift of laughter.” [CJW note: Thurber is now dead – he is missed]

The priceless gift of laughter. Without it we have a wrong view of things. Not all so-called humor is good or creative. The priceless gift is not the kind of laughter that is directed to another’s weakness or generated in a spirit of scorn or false superiority. Such degrading humor is but the admission of one’s own fears and an unpleasant egotism. The priceless gift is “the ability to laugh at ourselves, to appreciate the infinitesimal value of our own lives in the cosmic scheme, the willingness to see ourselves as very temporary fixtures in an ancient design whose nobility [CJW note: complex, mysterious] whose nobility is beyond our complete comprehension.”

I read to you scriptures from the Book of Judges. The old ideas of the Bible have inhibited us from seeing all the varieties of human experience that have been recorded in the varied literature represented in the “scriptures.” Not very frequently do we look for laughter in the Bible. Yet unless we are alert for humor, we will overlook some of the most human characteristics of the ancient tales.

(Cecil DeMille – Mature – LaMarr) I don’t suppose that Mr. DeMille ever was told that the religious elements of Samson’s life were added by pious descendants, hundreds of years after the events. Samson was a folk-hero. Just as the Germans had Baron Munchausen, the French had Roland, the English, King Arthur, and the Americans, Paul Bunyan, so the Hebrew Bible had Samson.

There may have been an historical Samson. There may have been an historical King Arthur. But in both cases, and in all similar tales of folk heroes, the seed of history has been buried beneath an avalanche of legend, picking up many literary additions as they rolled through the centuries. There is something fascinating in the manner in which nearly every people has preserved a legend of a strong man, who usually wasn’t too smart. Samson was taken in by Delilah. King Arthur was deceived by Guinevere Munchausen did some stupid things, such as not recognizing the top of a church steeple when he tied his horse to it. Perhaps those tales are a cultural reminder that physical strength without having emotional balance and at least a few wits is a handicap rather than an asset.

Samson, although the old-fashioned Sunday school lessons would have us think of him as a religious hero, appears to be more a combination of village clown and village strongman. Perhaps he may be compared with some (perhaps many, perhaps few) of the physically powerful, but mentally unprepared football players which some sports-writers would have us believe are signed up by various universities, otherwise quite respectable seats of learning, for the purpose of making sure that the high mortgage notes on the new stadium, and the high salary of the coach will be paid. [CJW note: Coach ---> publicity ---> go to his head? He can’t read.)

Samson in the particular legend which was read this morning, appears to be playing more the role of clown than hero. Samson, a pre-Christian Tarzan, had killed a lion with his bare hands. A little while later, he had returned to the dead lion and a swarm of bees had taken up residence in the carcass. Samson, so the story goes, liked honey and, reaching in, took up a handful of the sweet stuff to eat. Out of the incident, there occurred to this big clown a riddle which he felt sure no one could answer. So he went to town and stopped in at a party where thirty of his friends gathered. This part of the story I believe. Where in any town or city can you not find at least 30 young men hanging around, ready for a party or a chance to have fun at the expense of a dull-wit like Samson?

So Samson proposed his riddle, and he said to them, “Out of the eater came forth food and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” He wagered thirty suits of clothes (linen garments) that the riddle could not be guessed in seven days. That was probably a sizable bet, even for the village sport. It was a good riddle. The thirty fellows in the gang would not have solved it except for the fact that they prevailed in some manner which legend has left cloudy (just as well for our sensibilities) on Samson’s wife to tell them the answer to the riddle. So on the seventh day, the gang gave Samson the answer to the riddle – they said, “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?”

Did Samson pay his bet? Apparently one of the qualities that Samson lacked was THE ABILITY to laugh when the joke was on him. In our words, “he couldn’t take it.” Anyway the story tells us he went to Ashkelon and killed thirty fellows and paid off the bet with the loot from his massacre.

Humor is part of the sacred scriptures. Laughter is one of the timeless elements of the human experience. Laughter is universal. Should there come a day without the Samsons, the Munchausens, Will Rogers, Fred Allen, Johnny Carson, George Burns, Bob Hope, Rodney Dangerfield – this world may be scientific, efficient, and orderly, but it will be a drab place to live.

Even when we feel strongly about a political issue, laughter can help. I think I told you how I heard the story which occurred last Christmas in Denver. There was a controversy about a Christian creche on the City Hall lawn. Those who strongly believed in the separation of church and state took action to have it removed, and the judge, mindful of the U.S. Constitution granted their request. There was, of course, much indignation among Christians. One, furious, called the ACLU and talked to the regional director. “Who’s responsible for this?” he demanded. The regional director hesitated, then replied, “Thomas Jefferson, I guess.” “Well, put him on the phone – I want to tell him a few things.”

There is a story about William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania and a devout, uncompromising Quaker. In order to achieve his wish to acquire territory in the new world, he had to see King Charles. Now in that day, and I guess this, it was the proper thing to do for a man to uncover his head in the presence of royalty. But William Penn thought of the Kingdom of God on earth as a place of democracy and equality, and a place where no one should take his hat off to anyone else, particularly a king. He insisted on meeting King Charles with his headgear firmly in place. Charles was a king. Certain conduct was expected in his presence. But Charles, with all his faults, did show occasional flashes of humor. He had the priceless gift of laughter. Otherwise there might have been no Pennsylvania, no Philadelphia, or even a William Penn. Charles took off his hat when Penn entered, with the remark that when a subject talks with the king, only one head remains covered.

Even the president in the most divisive and tragic period of American history, A. Lincoln, found the priceless gift of laughter would help relieve some of the cruel tensions and burdens of the presidency in such a time. Even in war-time, the office of the President of the US is pestered unmercifully by political hangers-on, seeking easy jobs with large incomes at the Federal trough. It is so now – it was so in Lincoln’s day. One time when Lincoln was stricken with small-pox, he wrote to a political friend [that] he wished all the job-seekers would visit him at once, for now he could give them something.

Some scholars of the human condition tell us that the very sound of laughter as it comes forth is an audible signal of the release of tension. A laugh many times will perform the function of a pill, and much more naturally.

Were you ever frustrated and annoyed at slow or poor service in a restaurant? Well, there was a restaurant that advertised quick service, but didn’t give it. A patron gave an order for ice cream, waited patiently, then fell asleep. He woke to hear the waitress asking, “Did you order this sundae?” “Good heavens,” exclaimed the customer, “what day IS this?”

In the beginning I spoke of the honorary degree granted to the late James Thurber whose wit and insight did so much to make the magazine THE NEW YORKER the literary gem it has been. T.S. Eliot, who was a poet and essayist of extremely serious mind and quite somber in the presentation of life, made this comment about Thurber’s humor: “It is a form of humor which is also a way of saying something serious. There is a criticism of life at the bottom of it. It is serious and even somber. Unlike so much humor it is not merely a criticism of manners – that is, of the superficial aspects of society at a given moment – but something more profound. To some extent they will be a document of the age they belong to.” James Thurber himself said, “The human species is both horrible and wonderful. Occasionally, I get very mad at human beings, but there’s nothing you can do about it. I like people and hate them at the same time. I wouldn’t draw them in cartoons, if I didn’t think they were horrible; and I wouldn’t write about them if I didn’t think they were wonderful.”

Seeing ourselves as both wonderful and comic is one of the levels of maturity. Consider [that] we are not so far removed from the jungle and the beast that we have not quite left behind. We want to strike back, to hide, to be intent on gaining the meal of the moment, to give an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But also, we can reach for a maturity that can see the possibilities for us to escape a jungle ethic – to see the possibilities for cooperation as well as conflict. Love can be generated as well as hate. One can lift as well as kick. Unless we have the priceless gift of laughter, we could not bear to see persons die when they could live, see them despise others when they could admire them, see them make a mess of life when it could be profound and beautiful.

One of the foundations of our human world is the priceless gift of laughter so that we may gain new strength, new courage, and new hope as we wander, sometimes with purpose, sometimes aimlessly along the mysterious, tragic, but wonderful path we call life.

Give me a sense of humor, Lord
Give me grace to see a joke
To get some happiness from life
and pass it on to other folk.