A person who can laugh and go with life does not demand to be in control, which is why the most controlling people may be sarcastic but lack an authentic sense of humor.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that true humor comes from a sense of ease with life, rather than a need for control.
Richard Rohr's quote highlights the contrast between those who navigate life with a sense of humor and those who feel the need to control circumstances. It implies that individuals who can laugh at life's unpredictability often enjoy a deeper, more authentic sense of joy, while those who are overly controlling may resort to sarcasm yet lack genuine humor, signaling a disconnect from the spontaneity of life.
In practice
During a team meeting, to lighten the mood when discussing project challenges, one could share this quote to emphasize the value of humor in facing difficulties.
My scientist friends have come up with things like 'principles of uncertainty' and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean its exact opposite.
The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend.
I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.
Much of the Christian religion has largely become “holding on” instead of letting go. But God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go (of everything else).
We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world.
I've found that the chief difficulty for most people was to realize that they had really heard new things: that is things that they had never heard before. They kept translating what they heard into their habitual language. They had ceased to hope and believe there might be anything new.
Both formerly and now, it is only suffering that I describe, and the cessation of suffering.
Repressed anger becomes a temporary madness. Something happens which is beyond your control. If you could have controlled, you would have controlled it still -- but suddenly it was overflowing. Suddenly it was beyond you. You couldn't do anything, you felt helpless -- and it came out. Such a person may not be angry, but he moves and lives in anger.
Living out here, I have found that many creatures would prefer not to fight. But if your first instinct is to reach for your sword, you will never discover that.
When the mind is full of memories and preoccupied by the future, it misses the freshness of the present moment. In this way, we fail to recognize the luminous simplicity of mind that is always present behind the veils of thought.
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
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