Humor in Times of Adversity with Mo Rocca

What is the role of humor during our most difficult times?

Join me on Tuesday, July 14, 2-3 pm ET, for my interview with humorist, journalist, and actor Mo Rocca. I’ll ask Mo why we are drawn to humor especially when times are tough.

Register for details at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mo-rocca-on-the-chat-humor-in-times-of-adversity-tickets-109755371270. 

Mo is best known for his off-beat news reports and satirical commentary. Currently a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, Rocca is also the host of CBS’s series The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation. The show features stories about some of the world’s greatest inventions—past and present—and the effort it took to create them, educating and inspiring audiences with stories of creativity, hard work, and passion. Mo created and hosted the Cooking Channel’s My Grandmother’s Ravioli, in which he learned to cook from grandparents across America. He is also a frequent panelist on NPR’s hit weekly quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me

Couldn’t we all use a good laugh right about now?

“A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.” ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

I remember when I was in 5th grade and sitting near the front of the church every Sunday. All the kids my age would attend Sunday school classes in the morning and then be ushered in to sit in the front and center of the church for the full Sunday sermon. I imagine the front and center placement was so the adults could make sure we stayed in line. We had the best seats in the house.

Photo by John-Mark Smith from Pexels

At this point in my upbringing, I was very devout. I was serious about my religion and my guts churned with shame regularly, knowing that I had not read through the entire Bible yet, marking so many passages like Amanda, who was the same age but obviously much more advanced with all her underlined and highlighted passages.

My family was in the process of breaking apart for the second and last time. My parents were at each other’s throats, constantly fighting. My younger sister and I kept this fact to ourselves at church, but it was an open secret. My parents were in counseling at the church and stories leaked out. I knew this because periodically I would be pulled out of Sunday School to pray with one person or another who felt “called by God” to pray over our family and who also often felt like sharing exactly the stories they had heard with me that had inspired this fervent call to God.

Anyway, sitting there, in front of the Church, I sat as tall and straight as I could. My hands clasped in my lap while I frowned at the kids around me who misbehaved. I judged (a sin!) those others who whispered and chatted during the sermon. And on this particular Sunday morning, after listening to my parents yell and scream at each other in the car, I held in my tears as I sat in front of the church silently wondering what would happen when we all got back into the car after the sermon was over. How long would my parents’ masks stay in place on our ride home?

And then I smelled it.

The smell was so awful I wanted to gag. I heard a burst of frenzied, short, evil giggles and then saw the Boyer brothers turning red in the face and punching each other in the arms. Someone else near me gasped out a cackle and then restrained herself.

There were murmurs and whispers that grew louder and soon the commotion had taken center stage on a Sunday morning so that the sound had traveled up to the pulpit.

“What did he eat?!” someone whispered and a whole row of 6th graders laughed.

The pastor paused mid-sentence and looked directly at the group of us taking up the front center rows as if Satan had already claimed us as his own.

I set my jaw, clutched the edges of my pastel Precious Moments Bible, and stared ahead as maturely and with as much reverence as I could muster. These monsters were so childish!

And then, as Pastor Brannon began to lay into us with talk about the devil’s mission being to distract us, one of the Boyers quacked like a duck and I lost it.

It was like I was on the cusp of boiling and someone had added kerosene to the flame underneath me.

The combination of my parent’s hostility for one another, certain damnation, the intense stare of the pastor, a repugnant (and resilient) fart, and then, finally, absurdly, the sound of a duck quacking took every ounce of control I had and suddenly I was laughing so desperately hard that tears were coming from my eyes and I couldn’t stop.

I’m sure I seemed possessed at that moment.

While many of the other kids had reigned themselves in to avoid getting into too much more trouble, my entire shell had cracked and the relief I felt in that laughter came pouring out. I had to leave the room and I have to believe that many in that congregation assumed I had been the one responsible for causing trouble (although the kids upfront all knew it wasn’t me). It didn’t matter, though. That duck quack and the pastor’s angry face all joined in my head again and again and I just kept choking out laughter in the foyer while I waited for the service to end.

I was embarrassed, but I didn’t regret it. I had needed, desperately needed, to laugh.

But why? What is the role of humor during our most difficult times?

Join me on Tuesday, July 14, 2-3 pm ET, for my interview with humorist, journalist, and actor Mo Rocca. I’ll ask Mo why we are drawn to humor especially when times are tough.

Register for details at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mo-rocca-on-the-chat-laughter-in-the-time-of-coronavirus-tickets-109755371270.

Special thanks to Mike D’Andrea, GTN, A UTA Company.


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