Ya Gotta Laugh

I believe God wants us to laugh--probably a lot more than we do.  In every congregation that I have served I have told the them that I do not think that worship is "worship" if there isn't at least a little laughter each time we gather.  So far, none of the congregations I have served have let me down.  I just think that laughter is a big part of spirituality and thus it was that I was a little upset last week when one of my favorite websites announced that it was closing its site.  For several years now I have read daily comic strips at comics.com.  As disappointed as I was to learn that on June 1st they would no longer exist, I was just excited to learn that they were actually combining with another daily comic strip website--GOCOMICS.com (http://www.gocomics.com/).  This was heaven-sent as this doubled the number of daily comic strips I could choose from!  What a wonderful surprise!

This morning I more than doubled the number of comic strips that I normally read--I nearly overdosed on the laughter.  I was able to find all of my favorites from the previous site, plus many more that I could only get in the big city's newspaper.  One that I haven't seen for years and always enjoyed was:

Bloom County

I get to re-connect to Opus and all the adventures of the characters of Bloom County.  I missed Opus!  Then there was this favorite:

Calvin and Hobbes

Who doesn't enjoy the adventures and escapades of Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes.  Besides the theology comes from two characters named after theologians--one quite famous (Calvin) and one quite obscure (Hobbes).  I especially enjoy the winter strips as Calvin provides quite a show of snow sculptures with a morbid sense of pride.  Then there is one of my favorites since high school (yes, they had comics back then, but they were on stone tablets):

Doonesbury

It has been great to see a second, and now a third, generation grow up on the Doonesbury strip.  It still has its political satire in full swing!  They even had this guy:

Ziggy

They seem to have them all . . . and that is good.  That is good because our newspaper is usually delivered well after I leave for work in the big city.  Because of that I usually read the paper on the Internet.  This is great except that they do not have the comics!  Plus our most recent newspaper deliverer is very inconsistent and brings the paper whenever he or she wants--often quite late. I have been telling the wife that if I could find all of the newspaper's comic strips on line that we were not renewing our subscription when it runs out.  Looks like I have found the solution and will save some bucks in the process.  The only problem is the wife's crossword puzzle, but hey!  Guess what?  It is on the Internet, too!  We will just print it out each day--bye, bye big city newspaper!

If you love to laugh . . . if you love comics . . . then I highly suggest that you check out GOCOMICS.com at http://www.gocomics.com/.  I think you will have a great time, laugh a little, and do a little spiritual jogging.  Plus, it is free!  Check it out!