You Don’t Want Your Brain Surgeon to Have a Hobby
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My three brothers and sister and I went to Catholic schools
and two of us became priests. Most of our family’s friends were Catholic. We
were interested in the celebrities who were Catholic. They included stars like
Bing Crosby, Gregory Peck, Loretta Young, Grace Kelly, Spencer Tracy and James
Cagney.
I must admit that I still like hearing that contemporary
stars, like Liam Neeson, Robert De Niro and Stephen Colbert, are Catholic. And
I was pleased when I learned that my favorite standup comedian, Jim Gaffigan,
is Catholic.
A New Appreciation
I had an epiphany relatively late in life regarding my faith
and its relationship to other faiths and to people of no faith. Somewhere in
the college portion of my seminary training, I gained a new appreciation for
the traditional Protestant denominations, feeling solidarity with them, and
discovering how much my faith has in common with Judaism. Later, I began to
appreciate my commonality with non-believers.
It’s all part of growing up, I suppose, but I must admit
that I retain some of my Catholic tribal instinct. Does that have something to
do with why I laugh so hard at Gaffigan’s jokes?
It may at least have something to do with why I was
especially interested when America magazine, the Jesuit periodical I quote
often in these blogs, published an article on Gaffigan – about his family life
(he has five children and lives with his wife, Jeannie, in a small, New York
apartment), his career and his faith.
“I went to a Catholic high school, a Catholic college;” says
Gaffigan, “but for most of my 20s I would probably identify as an agnostic. I
probably went through a couple of years where I was a rebellious atheist. So I
empathize with their point of view.”
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Gaffigan goes on to say that he now has a “greater openness
to moving beyond intellectual questions about God and making the leap of faith.
“Cynicism is very comforting,” he says. “Getting caught up
in the larger intellectual debate might be constructive on an intellectual
level, but is that serving the person you want to be?”
Jim and his wife, Jeannie, who is also his comedy writer,
had a sitcom on TV, which I never saw, that lasted two seasons. Says Bill
McGarvey, the America article’s author: “…The world the Gaffigans portrayed on
their show is simply an amplified comedic version of the messy and complicated
lives that most American Catholics – and people of all faiths – unconsciously
negotiate every day. What is astonishing is not that they pulled it off but
that we do not see that reality reflected more regularly in popular media.”
That may be because many people consider “religious” people
and their lives boring and humorless.
A "Shiite Catholic"
McGarvey writes that Gaffigan “is not interested in holding
himself up as a model Catholic,” (as opposed to Jeannie, whom Gaffigan calls a
“Shiite Catholic”) but a key to his, and all comedians’ success, is finding
humor where others don’t. He and Jeannie were able to do that in the face of
Jeannie’s 2017 surgery for a brain tumor.
“I don’t want our brain surgeon to have hobbies,” says
Gaffigan. “You want him to be like, ‘You know what I like to do when I’m not
doing brain surgery? I’m thinking about how I can be a better brain surgeon.’”
Tribalism may not have a place in genuine religion, but
humor certainly does.
“Humor is, in fact, a prelude to faith;” wrote the famous
theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, “and laughter is the beginning of prayer…. The
saintliest men frequently have a humorous glint in their eyes. They retain the
capacity to laugh at both themselves and at others…. To meet the
disappointments and frustrations of life, the irrationalities and contingencies
with laughter, is a high form of wisdom.”
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