lenten journal: comedy

under the alleluias

I once heard a comedian
say the only way to get to
the jokes that mattered was
to push through the easy stuff,
the sophomoric double entendres,
the terrible puns, and get past
the low-hanging fruit of the
obvious and only then can you
begin to discover great comedy.

I don’t think I’m stretching the
analogy too far to say that
Lent does the same thing for faith:
we have laid aside our alleluias
for these forty days and pushed
past the familiar words of praise,
as we sang our songs of sorrow,
told our stories of grief, without
moving to what comes easily.

we have listened to the birds
who are not singing, and talked
to those who no longer answer,
waited for things that didn’t come,
and remembered Love is stronger
than sunshine, that hope is not
happiness: to get to the gallows
humor of the gospel, and the belly
laugh of the empty tomb at sunrise.

Peace,
Milton