Caught this bit wandering the internet at some point last year, Stephen Colbert talking about the intersection of faith and humor in his life, his perspective therein…it struck immediately…so…GOOD.

He pulls in Robert Hayden to help him put words to his thoughts. Hayden, the first US Poet Laureate who was also Black, gifted with phrase and perspective, together with Colbert, quite the pairing…and so Colbert says in part,

“Us all being mortal, faith will win out in the end,

…when I get to heaven, hope that Jesus has a sense of humor,

as a Christian and Catholic, I’ve always been connected to the idea of love and sacrifice being somehow related, and giving yourself to other people, and death is not defeat,

sadness is a little bit of an emotional death but not a defeat, if you can find a way to laugh about it,
the laughter keeps you from having fear of it,

fear is the thing that keeps us from turning to evil devices to save you from the sadness,

as Robert Hayden said, ‘we must not be tricked into accepting evil as our deliverance from evil,
we must keep struggling to maintain our humanity, tho’ monsters of abstraction threaten and police us,
no matter what happens you are never defeated,
we must see [sadness and other struggles] in the light of eternity, and find a way to love and laugh with each other…’

something like that,”

YES, indeed.

And then to close, I offer this little bit also on the human condition, with gratitude for this perspective by Robert Hayden from “Words in the Mourning Time”, a stirring plea in the name of all humanity:

“Reclaim now, now renew the vision of
a human world where godliness
is possible and man
is neither gook nigger honkey wop or kike
but man

                       permitted to be man."

Amen I say, AMEN.