Prayers: Laughing with God

LAUGHING WITH GOD

God of All Creation,

We, humans, are the only species of animal to whom You gave the gift of laughter. Hyenas? Well, they make sounds like laughter, but they have no sense of humor: they don't get the joke.

You gave me the gift of seeing
the incongruities and imperfections
and incompleteness of my human existence.

Humor keeps me from taking myself
too seriously, and the occasional
"slip on a bananas peel" enables me
to detect inappropriate pomposity
in others, as well as in myself.

Your gift of the ability to laugh at my own foibles, prompts me not to take myself too gravely before I come to my grave:
(bad pun!)

I laugh innocently and joyously
at the unsteadiness of a baby's first steps
or the clumsy antics of tumbling kittens,
or frisky bear cubs, or waddling penguins.

Thank, You, God, for this treasured
and happy gift of laughter which brightens
my day, and lightens my journey to You.

Let me never use humor to mock another person, and let me never laugh
at the stumbles or the misfortunes
of another.

But You know, God, that there is a thin line between tragedy and comedy: If someone falls, I laugh until I see that they are hurt, or I hold my laughter until I see that they are uninjured.

Let me then, Lord, meet each day happily, with a smile on my face, and the bright joy of You in my heart.

And let me be able to laugh,
even when the joke is on me.

Amen

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