Bring Back the Fun
He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting. (Job 8:21)
As people of faith, it is essential to have fun. Sadly, society is changing, with fun often being forgotten or unattainable. We are working 15% more hours than in the 1960’s. We struggle to get away from our phones and are bombarded with text messages, emails, and the constant drone of TikTok and Facebook notifications. Our tech world has replaced three television channels with unlimited movies and shows available 24 hours per day. Video games are so lifelike; it is as if you are part of the action. Why bother with the natural world when digital reality is so cool, and you control the action?
The unintended consequence of all these technological wonders is the human toll. We are isolating ourselves from necessary human contact. Getting together with others and having fun takes time and energy. It often feels easier to grab the remote or game module and ignore the outside world. Yet, when we look up from our screens, we realize we are alone, lonely, and emotionally and spiritually numb. We didn’t even realize somewhere amid the game drain, we lost our ability to experience fun.
In her Washington Post article “Fun is dead,” Karen Heller reminds the reader that fun used to exist. Heller said, Sometime in recent history, possibly around 2004, Americans forgot to have fun, true fun, as though they’d misplaced it like a sock.” We’ve made fun too tricky. We cannot even announce the sex of an unborn baby without hiring a party planner and posting the event on social media. Don’t even get me started on wedding hysteria.
Heller correctly calls us to reinstitute fun in our lives. Fun requires relationships. Even work can have fun moments when you care about the people you work with daily. Teasing, jokes and laughter require a certain amount of relational understanding. I look forward to staff meetings every Monday. We joke, tease, and laugh with each other. Fun is possible because each of us knows it is a safe place. Our staff is committed to setting the divine example and restoring fun to our lives. God made us for love, laughter, and enjoying the life God created.