Video Transcript: Sense of Humor

So do you think it's okay to laugh when people are old? It seems to me like there are. There are certain cultural forces which tell us that when you get older, you  shouldn't be laughing anymore. When you get older, you need to be more  serious, more subdued, more, more focused on the the important things in life,  which are never funny, I guess. The question becomes, is it okay for me to laugh when I'm old? And especially as we're senior ministers, is it okay for us? To do  things that help senior citizens laugh Snoopy, Snoopy is one of the all time great characters you've been around just forever. And one of the things that is  interesting about Snoopy as you see him laughing from time to time. And the  question we need to ask is, can we laugh with an elderly person is senior  ministers. Can we be laughing when we interact with older folks. And I think one  of the things that, that I have experienced over the years, given my role as  pastor in people's lives and as, as leader in their church, and as someone who  was desirous of helping them to, to find their way in their senior years, the ability to laugh seemed to me to be a very important thing to do. And to make possible  it, and so one of the things that I've, I used to hear, I don't hear anymore,  because now now it's a little more often than it happened. But people would say, when you give us permission to laugh, even if we're in church, and that's true,  we need to have permission to laugh, we need to have the opportunity to laugh,  we need to have an an open door to laughter because laughter is, I think, a gift  of God. It's as we are looking at the strange way some things are associated  with each other. All you can do is laugh, it just Oh, you gotta be kidding me. This  is so dumb. And as senior ministers, I think we have an opportunity to help  people laugh. Not to be cynical not to laugh at other people and what's wrong  with them, but to laugh, because it's just good for us to laugh. Even though  some of our culture gives us the idea that elderly people are grumpy, grumpy,  they have no sense of humor. And so they're, they're always grumpy, they're  scowling. They're yelling at people. They're just, they're always wanting others  to, to get off my yard. And we're gonna see that a little more. The seniors that  we ministered most likely seeing the movie Grumpy Old Men, a 1993 movie  about two guys who scowl almost all the time. They are the epitome of what  elderly people are like. It seems that what what we think it was a very popular  movie. And it even had a sequel that was produced but Grumpy Old Men had  these two guys who, who just were always they were upset about various  things. And it, it portrayed them as though they are normal elderly guys. And so  they're grumpy. And that may be what people think of when they see themselves growing older that they are going to turn into grumpy people. That's true. People with Alzheimer's and dementia are prone to be grumpy and irritable. That's part  of the deterioration of the brain. It is not a moral failure on their part. It's not  something that that is problematic actually in their lives. It actually may be a side effect of the condition. And could also be that as these people see their mental  faculties slipping away, they get angry because they can't stop it. They can't get 

dementia. They're forgetfulness, their sense of loss of personal identity that  autobiographical loss would tend to make us grumpy because we don't even  know who we are anymore Clint Eastwood had this this movie called Gran  Torino and and it features at one point with a shotgun pointed at some of the  neighbor kids Get off my lawn. And that idea of Get off my lawn is is one that it  says this is mine. Finally, I have something I can call mine. Now will you get off it You're bothering it not talk show host David Letterman may not have created  that phrase, but he certainly popularized it. And Indiana born Boomer jumped at  the phrase, adapt. Adapting is one of his signature tag lines beginning in 1980.  So in 1980, already, if you were watching the Late Show with David Letterman,  you would be treated every now and then to the line, get off my lawn and it was  taken in into mainstream American consciousness that that get off my lawn. It  was a line that said that people needed to be giving him room to be himself. And that was a sense in which they didn't want to have any more people bothering  them. They just want to be left alone, especially by young people. And so the  baby boomer humor grew to dominate sitcoms throughout the 1980s and then  into the 90s. And I mean, it was a part of the Clint Eastwood movie and Homer  Simpson spread its fame in the 1992 episode of the suburban satire of The  Simpsons, his cartoon father Abraham Simpson expresses similar pointless  rage in the mean, where the old man yells at clouds because we're losing  control. And we want to keep something for ourselves. And so get off my lawn  became a line that was associated with grumpy old people. That Get off my lawn is a four word Ode to grumpiness and grass turned into an enduring national  punch line. And even though younger folks might not appreciate the cultural  background of the line that is firmly embedded in our cultural psyche and get off  my lawn is something that that we see, embodied in so many different ways.  There's fences, there's higher fences, there's very high fences, there's terribly  high fences. The more wealthy we get the bigger fence we want to have to keep  people off our lawn. The more isolated we become in our in our backyard space  where we can't see anybody else and then we're keeping everybody else off my  lawn that grumpiness has become a way of understanding the elder they just  are grumpy. And so what's happened seems to me because the younger folks  expect the elderly to always find something to yell at them about. And that's  really too bad. Because that breaks down community that forms a barrier to  good community. So when we are interacting with seniors, I think we need to  give them room for being grumpy, but also we need to provide opportunities for  laughter. because laughter is so good for our heart and for our soul. One thing  that elderly people know is that we might as well laugh at the antics of others,  because we're too old to do something about it. And the antics of others can be  just hilarious when you see what people are trying to do in order to, to, to get  ahead or to be influential or to be unique. I was reading a description of a  generational issue recently, where they were describing how the certain 

category of people, the demographic were, were acting. And what it did is it went through a whole series of things that really were kind of funny and hilarious,  because it was saying that, well, they want to wear these jeans, in such a way  that, that they're, they're torn, and this and that, and the next thing and, and they want to be unique, they want to be themselves and express themselves. But the problem is that everybody else in their age group is doing the same thing. And  one begins to just laugh at how that works. So we might all laugh at the antics of others. Because really, we're too old to do anything about it. Doing some study  on this one study focus told me about 20 people in their 60s and 70s. And they  put them in two different groups. Now one of the groups sat quietly, they're kind  of in timeout, without any reading or watching anything. And the other group  watch funny videos and about 20 minutes for each of these groups. And after  about 20 minutes, researchers got samples of their saliva. And they found that  the group that had watched funny videos had lower cortisol levels. And now  what that means is that, that they were less stressed than the group that had  nothing to do and just sat there quietly. To just sit someplace quietly with nothing to do is stressful. At least it's more stressful than watching something funny. And additionally, the people in both groups took a memory test. The group that had  watched the videos had a much better memory recall than the other group,  though the 20 minute break had apparently helped the memory of both groups.  So sitting quietly for 20 minutes might very well be what you need in order to  start remembering things more clearly. But it'll be even better if you watch  something funny or you're involved with something funny. More specifically that  it says the group that watch funny videos improve their memory by 43%. While  the other group saw a 20% improvement in their memory recall. And humor also seem to improve their learning ability. And I have no idea how they tried to  measure that, or what they even mean by learning ability amongst those who  are in their 70s. Since it went up by 38% in the group, that watch the funny  videos, compared to a 24% improvement in the other group. Then there was a  Norwegian study that followed 50,000 adults, these 50,000 adults, they started  following them as they were turning 60. And they followed people for about 10  years until they were 70. And they just were taking note of how things were  going for them and how were things being be there. How was their health doing, how was their their lives being enriched or not, and so on. And the study results  revealed that the greater role humor played in the participants lives the greater  chance of their surviving until they were 70. Adults who scored in the top quarter for humor, appreciation were 35% more likely to be alive than those in the  bottom quarter. So it looks like you wanted to be in the in the group that could at  least appreciate things and laugh about them. And that I think speaks a lot to  what our task is also as a minister to seniors. Let's help people Have fun. It's  how people laugh once in a while. Chronic Pain is common in later life. And the  illustration shows where peripheral arthritis can can happen and what what 

happens just becomes so painful and and you know, your knees and your wrist,  your elbows, your ankles. Over the years, I've sprained my ankles each, two or  three times. And now when I get up in the morning, I have to walk for a little bit  before the pain goes away in the ankle, but it'll, it'll go away, but I got to get that  walking going. Because otherwise, it just hurts even just to stand up. And that  chronic pain can be associated with negative mood states and negative life  satisfaction. It's hard to be happy about my life when I get up in the morning,  and I can stand on my feet without it having me painful. And so many older  people, well, they accept pain as part of their life, and they don't seek help, and  they'll become severe, unbearable. And the consequences though, of chronic  pain, are considerable include loneliness, social isolation, depression, just think  of that, just because of pain I hurt. And therefore I become more lonely because  I can't get around and because I can't get around have social isolation. And  because I don't have anybody to talk to I get depressed. And because I get  depressed, I have impaired functional mobility and I can't walk as well. And I'm  one of those people that indeed is the elder they're bent over and they're  walking with their head hanging down. All of this is due often to chronic pain,  and that can make people really, really grumpy. But laughter laughter can help  turn that around. Senior citizens need to have some humor in their lives  because what it actually lessens chronic pain. laughter can help you get over  feelings of depression and laughter even gives a person a better attitude  towards social interaction so that as you're as you're living your life and you find  yourself laughing and enjoying something, you'll suddenly discover you don't  hurt as much anymore. Because the laughter and the good things that it helps  to, to have be released the hormones that gets to be released in your body  endorphins, help get get you over that pain. And so when we're ministering to  seniors, we need to help them to laugh, and to be able to enjoy themselves,  even if they think they're really not supposed to. Because when you're elderly,  you shouldn't be happy, I just want to spend a little bit of time with, with various  translations of Proverbs 17:22, because I think this is one of the wonderful  verses in the book of Proverbs A cheerful heart is good medicine. But a crushed  spirit dries up the bones. A cheerful heart is good medicine. You know, when you have pain and when you are suffering with that pain, if you can have a cheerful  heart. The pain will not be as bad it'll be it'll be lessened but when you have a  crushed spirit, the bones seem to even dry up. Another new living translation  makes it a cheerful heart is good medicine. But a broken spirit saps a person's  strength. So even the Scriptures, the wise Solomon as he was looking at the  world around you could see that this was so this is common sense. But so often  we don't. We don't accept what the Bible has to say. And don't think of it as good medicine. The Berean Study Bible puts it this way, a joyful heart is good  medicine. But a broken spirit dries up the bones the New King James, a merry  heart does good like medicine. But a broken spirit dries the bones. The joyful 

heart the New American Standard Bible says, a joyful heart, good medicine. But  a broken spirit dries up the bones or the Amplified Bible puts in a happy heart is  good medicine and a joyful mind causes healing. But a broken spirit dries up the bones. You can see from this what the Scriptures are encouraging us to be  

aware of cheerful heart Joyful Heart, merry heart, happy heart, joyful mind. All of these are ways of expressing the Hebrew which wants us to see that this is  good medicine. This is how we can get better. This is how we can deal with that  grumpiness. But the crushed spirit dries up the bones it saps a person's  strength. But that means that person is they have nothing to be happy about and so they're grumpy all the time. You as a senior minister have an opportunity to  be the one who generates the cheerful heart. Be sure that you keep laughter in  the lives of the people to whom we minister. We'll see you next time.