{"id":620,"date":"2011-04-01T11:11:38","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T15:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/?p=620"},"modified":"2011-12-08T12:20:20","modified_gmt":"2011-12-08T17:20:20","slug":"its-always-good-to-laugh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/04\/its-always-good-to-laugh.html","title":{"rendered":"It’s Always Good to Laugh"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve written before that I gave up praying for patience and instead I pray for laughter<\/a> in our family. Similarly, sometimes we need a little laughter in the church family too.<\/p>\n

Recently, the blogosphere has been alight with discussion of Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins.<\/p>\n

All of the discussion I’ve read so far surrounding Bell’s book is very serious. As well it should be. These are serious matters. But I was grateful to find a way to laugh about it. If you’re looking for a little levity, check out Flunking Sainthood, Jana Reiss’ blog. Today’s post: “Satan Sues Rob Bell for Defamation<\/a>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written before that I gave up praying for patience and instead I pray for laughter in our family. Similarly, sometimes we need a little laughter in the church family too. Recently, the blogosphere has been alight with discussion of Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins. All of the discussion I’ve read so far surrounding…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[32,18,31],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-laughter","tag-rob-bell","tag-universalism"],"yoast_head":"\nIt's Always Good to Laugh - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/04\/its-always-good-to-laugh.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It's Always Good to Laugh - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ve written before that I gave up praying for patience and instead I pray for laughter in our family. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":622,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}