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Good morning.

And it’s a happy birthday to one of the UK’s best-loved comedians: John Cleese turns 86 today. He’s perhaps best known as the co-creator of Fawlty Towers, where he played the wonderfully inept hotel manager, Basil Fawlty. Despite making only 12 episodes, the series has become a cult classic, playing so often on misunderstandings, language barriers and complaining customers. It makes me wonder: how is that watching this kind of farcical chaos and having a good belly laugh, can actually leave us feeling better about things?

Laughter is a universal human response that pops up in so many places, not only in response to the comic timing of people like Cleese. Different things will make different people laugh – and it even seems that laughter has cultural differences. Some people use humour to normalise things, especially in difficult environments. This can appear a bit shocking to those of us not in that environment, who assume it’s inappropriate to laugh about serious things. I suppose humans need medicinal pressure valves – and humour seems to act as a pressure valve like no other.

Maybe some of us listening to this today are experiencing something that feels far from a laughing matter. G.K. Chesterton, nicknamed the ‘Laughing Prophet’ for his understanding of humour as an essential ingredient in navigating all the ups and downs of human life, writes these words to us:

Chattering finch and water-fly
Are not merrier than I;
Here among the flowers I lie
Laughing everlastingly.
No: I may not tell the best;
Surely, friends, I might have guessed
Death was but the good King’s jest,
It was hid so carefully.

Lord, help us to believe you are with us in our darkness, and in our laughter,
joining your unending joy into whatever emotion we experience this day.
Amen.