By David Wilkinson
Talk about mixed feelings. On April Fool’s Day we published, in the tradition of National Public Radio, a “news story” by senior writer Bob Allen with the headline, “‘God Hates Fags’ church apologizes.”
Except for a lot of anecdotal accounts (that mostly gave it a thumbs-up), I don’t know whether our readers liked the spoof or hated it. That’s due, at least in part, to our decision to suspend the “Comments” feature on our website until a long-overdue site upgrade is in place that among other things will allow us to implement and enforce better registration procedures and to moderate comments to ensure healthier online conversations.
But I do know the spoof piece attracted a lot of readers. In fact, as measured by Google Analytics, a story that was actually an April Fool’s joke ranks as the second-most read article published by ABP thus far in 2011, even though it was displayed on the home page for only that one day. A lot more of you read a pseudo news story than dozens and dozens of legitimate news stories we have published since Jan. 1. Now there’s some food for thought.
Bob’s story was clever and well-written. Based on e-mail and personal conversations, I know it generated a lot of “you got me!” responses from folks who read all the way to the “Happy April Fool’s Day” tagline before recognizing the story was contrived. It was fun.
On the other hand, our No. 1, most-read news story to date this year was about the shocking murder of 28-year-old Clint Dobson, found dead in the Arlington, Texas, church he served as pastor. Like you, I read this news story — and the related stories we published — with disbelief and sadness.
Tragedy and comedy. They are the stuff we report and write about because they are common to the human experience; they are the stuff of life — and the life of faith.
Over dinner with friends we laugh until our sides ache recounting hilarious, often embarrassing, moments we have shared. We have told the stories before, but we laugh just as hard when we hear them again.
Later the same night the telephone rings. A dear friend has been diagnosed with an inoperable, aggressive cancer that has already metastasized to the major organs. All the air in the laughter and light-heartedness of the evening is suddenly sucked out of us with a terrible whoosh.
Laughter and tears, joy and pain, are not two sides of the same coin. They are different emotional currents in the stream of life. Sometimes one is stronger than the other but one is never far from the other. And sometimes they are entwined.
“Laughter,” said entertainer Victor Borge, “is the shortest distance between two people.” So, I would suggest, is pain.
Frederick Buechner eloquently reminded us (Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale) that comedy and tragedy, joy and pain, laughter and tears are also the stuff of the gospel. As Holy Week approaches and the cross once again looms on the horizon, we prepare ourselves to walk with Jesus through the mystery of suffering and redemption to the end. In the End we sing and dance.
And laugh.