Pages tagged "Humor"

Dear Editor: I just yesterday received my printed copy of the September/October issue of Western Friend. Being newer to the Society of Friends, I wonder occasionally if my self-confident, nearly unrelenting sole-proprietor personality – an anti-violent celebration of life in friendship, healthier living, and occasional long streams of profanity – is contradictory to the seemingly tranquil serenity of the Society of Friends! I am inspired by your “From the Editor’s Desk” statements, especially, “Let’s play the Massively Multiplayer Offline Game called The Valley of the Shadow of Death.” Your statement appeals to both my sense of humor and spirituality. I suppose I need not explain your appeal to my sense of spirituality. In terms of humor, I am imagining the juxtaposition of your statement with a speaker in high places (such as major media, financial, or political spokesperson), offering a public suggestion – with the enthusiasm of a pre-teen cartoon character – to play a multiplayer offline game. Perhaps I am easily amused!

Dear Editor: In a time when even Superman, Batman, Ironman, and Spiderman slug it out amongst themselves, I’ve been thinking about a new comic strip: The Adventures of QuakerMan. Cape, a big “Q” on the chest, able to leap over the ocean of darkness is a single bound, etc. A hero who flies in (no, actually – arrives by public transit) to solve the latest threat to peace and mutual understanding, using X-Ray Discernment and a tenacity greater than steel. An illegal immigrant whose homeland has been destroyed by military insurgents, he was hidden as a child in the American Midwest during the Sanctuary Movement and was raised by a loving family, who taught him about Truth, Justice and the Antiestablishmentarian Way.

There are plenty of things to be upset about in today’s world. But, as Nancy Hicks Marshall argues in her latest work, The Book of Pro-s: An Alphabetical Chat about Things We Like (that’s pro-, as in the opposite of anti-), there are still plenty of things to like. In alphabetical order, from “accuracy” to “zumba,” are 118 pages of reminders that life is still worth living in this troubled world.