Laughter

"For I saw that finny goblin
       Hidden in the abyss untrod;
And I knew there can be laughter
       On the secret face of God."
-G.K. Chesterton, "The Fish"

If there is one thing I love about those I am closest to, it is their fabulous senses of humor.  My friends and family are funny people.  They make me laugh, to the point of tears sometimes.  And how beautiful is a good, hearty laugh!  Afterward, I feel full.  There is a sense of completion that I think comes from experiencing an external expression of inward happiness.  Just letting it all out makes me feel full.  A paradox?  Yes, but don't paradoxes reveal so much truth?  Sharing inward happiness with others externally through laughter is a great gift.

There is someone who has a perfect sense of humor... God.  One of my friends and I constantly say, "God is funny!  All the time!"  If I look at how my crazy life somehow falls into place, I cannot help but think God is chuckling to Himself up in Heaven.  As G.K. Chesterton's poem, "The Fish," proposes, if we look at all the funny lookin' animals, how can we not believe in God's sense of humor?  Have you ever seen an axolotl?  That is one freaky fish...

If we look at the Bible, though, there are no instances of Jesus laughing.  The Gospels record the important miracles, the important sermons, the Passion and the Resurrection.  There are no quirky narratives.  One of my favorite scenes from The Passion of the Christ is a flashback showing Jesus and Mary teasing each other.  It's so human, so loving.  Why not record these instances in the Gospels?  Maybe because they were irrelevant to the big picture.  Or maybe...

"There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray.  There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation.  There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth." -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Maybe because God's joy is so complete and perfect and big, it would have been too much for us to handle.  Maybe He simply enjoys weaving His humor into the subtleties of our lives.  Maybe it's a better adventure that way.

In any case, I am sure He loves hearing us laugh.

Colors

From September 16, 2010:

Before starting law school, I glanced through a couple of prep books, full of advice on how to survive the next three years.  One method they suggested was highlighting in technicolor — i.e. Use a different color for facts, procedural posture, reasoning, precedent, holding, dissents, etc.  I’ve been putting this practice to use, and I like it.  Not only does it help differentiate between the different parts of a case, but when I open my casebooks, they are aglow with bright, happy colors.

There I sit in Torts, Regulatory State or Contracts about to discuss res ipsa loquitur, the 1966 Motor Vehicle Safety Act, or consideration when I would have really liked to sleep for another hour… and bam!  I open my book and a beautiful array of greens, blues, pinks, oranges, reds, yellows and purples adorn the pages.  They make the words look so much prettier, the cases look more inviting and the statutes–yes, even the statutes–seem friendlier.

Seriously, seeing the sentence, “First, in those contracts where the condition calls for satisfaction as to commercial value or quality, operative fitness, or mechanical utility, dissatisfaction cannot be claimed arbitrarily, unreasonably, or capriciously…, and the standard of a reasonable person is used in determining whether satisfaction has been received…” is so much better when highlighted in cheery orange (Mattei v. Hopper, Supreme Court of California, 51 Cal.2d 119, 1958)

So, to all of you out there, I encourage technicolor highlighting.  Even if you have no idea what the case is about, it certainly will look perty after you’ve colored the whole thing.  If you really use your imagination, you can pretend you’re back in kindergarten and your only homework consisted of coloring in the pictures on your math homework: Two fish plus three fish equals… lots of different colored fishies.

Happy highlighting.

Underlining Periods

From September 4, 2010:


The first two weeks of “real” classes have been crazy to say the least, but I am enjoying them.  The reading has not drowned me and I have not been the “it” person yet, but I have learned that I am in a “brave new world.”

From the moment I stepped foot on campus, I heard: “Law students and lawyers are all Type A personalities.”  Driven, organized.  Control freaks, perfectionists.

It is true.  I have not necessarily learned this from my classmates or my legal theory courses, but from my Legal Writing Class.  Did you know that lawyers have a thick book that details–and I mean details–every single little thing about legal citation.  It’s so specific that they tell you not to underline the period with the rest of the case citation.  That little tiny dot at the end… don’t you dare extend that underline an extra millimeter to encompass it.

I know that citation is picky and doing things uniformly is important, but did you know that some abbreviations like “Co.” for “company” has to have a period but “Ass’n” for “association” should never have a period after it?  Eek!

Type A?  Check.

On a different note, this “brave new world” has already (yes, I admit it) infiltrated my daily thought.  They want us to “think like lawyers,” and I have begun to wonder about duty and breach when I watch a car accident on a television show.  Oh dear.  Just wait until I’ve gone through ALL of Torts.

I figure that the best solution is just to laugh at myself (and all the other lawyers) who want to regulate underlining or not underlining periods and analyze television shows with legal jargon running through our brains.

(But really, is that driver liable for negligence?)