The Morontia Life

48:4.1Joy­ful mirth and the smile-equiv­a­lent are as uni­ver­sal as mu­sic. There is a mor­ontial and a spir­i­tual equiv­a­lent of mirth and laugh­ter. The as­cen­dant life is about equally di­vided be­tween work and play—free­dom from as­sign­ment.

48:4.2Ce­les­tial re­lax­ation and super­hu­man hu­mor are quite dif­fer­ent from their hu­man ana­logues, but we all ac­tu­ally in­dulge in a form of both; and they re­ally ac­com­plish for us, in our state, just about what ideal hu­mor is able to do for you on Uran­tia. The Mor­ontia Com­pan­ions are skill­ful play spon­sors, and they are most ably sup­ported by the re­ver­sion di­rec­tors.

48:4.3You would prob­a­bly best un­der­stand the work of the re­ver­sion di­rec­tors if they were likened to the higher types of hu­morists on Uran­tia, though that would be an ex­ceed­ingly crude and some­what un­for­tu­nate way in which to try to con­vey an idea of the func­tion of these di­rec­tors of change and re­lax­ation, these min­is­ters of the ex­alted hu­mor of the mor­ontia and spirit realms.

48:4.4In dis­cussing spirit hu­mor, first let me tell you what it is not. Spirit jest is never tinged with the ac­cen­tu­a­tion of the mis­for­tunes of the weak and erring. Nei­ther is it ever blas­phe­mous of the righ­teous­ness and glory of di­vin­ity. Our hu­mor em­braces three gen­eral lev­els of ap­pre­ci­a­tion:

48:4.51. Rem­i­nis­cent jests. Quips grow­ing out of the mem­o­ries of past episodes in one’s ex­pe­ri­ence of com­bat, strug­gle, and some­times fear­ful­ness, and oft­times fool­ish and child­ish anx­i­ety. To us, this phase of hu­mor de­rives from the deep-seated and abid­ing abil­ity to draw upon the past for mem­ory ma­te­rial with which pleas­antly to fla­vor and oth­er­wise lighten the heavy loads of the pres­ent.

48:4.62. Cur­rent hu­mor. The sense­less­ness of much that so of­ten causes us se­ri­ous con­cern, the joy at dis­cov­er­ing the unim­por­tance of much of our se­ri­ous per­sonal anx­i­ety. We are most ap­pre­cia­tive of this phase of hu­mor when we are best able to dis­count the anx­i­eties of the pres­ent in fa­vor of the cer­tain­ties of the fu­ture.

48:4.73. Pro­phetic joy. It will per­haps be dif­fi­cult for mor­tals to en­vis­age this phase of hu­mor, but we do get a pe­cu­liar sat­is­fac­tion out of the as­sur­ance “that all things work to­gether for good”—for spir­its and mor­ontians as well as for mor­tals. This as­pect of ce­les­tial hu­mor grows out of our faith in the lov­ing over­care of our su­pe­ri­ors and in the di­vine sta­bil­ity of our Su­preme Di­rec­tors.

48:4.8But the re­ver­sion di­rec­tors of the realms are not con­cerned ex­clu­sively with de­pict­ing the high hu­mor of the var­i­ous or­ders of in­tel­li­gent be­ings; they are also oc­cu­pied with the lead­er­ship of di­ver­sion, spir­i­tual recre­ation and mor­ontia en­ter­tain­ment. And in this con­nec­tion they have the hearty co-op­er­a­tion of the ce­les­tial ar­ti­sans.

48:4.9The re­ver­sion di­rec­tors them­selves are not a cre­ated group; they are a re­cruited corps em­brac­ing be­ings rang­ing from the Ha­vona na­tives down through the mes­sen­ger hosts of space and the min­is­ter­ing spir­its of time to the mor­ontia pro­gres­sors from the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds. All are vol­un­teers, giv­ing them­selves to the work of as­sist­ing their fel­lows in the achieve­ment of thought change and mind rest, for such at­ti­tudes are most help­ful in re­cu­per­at­ing de­pleted en­er­gies.

48:4.10When par­tially ex­hausted by the ef­forts of at­tain­ment, and while await­ing the re­cep­tion of new en­ergy charges, there is agree­able plea­sure in liv­ing over again the en­act­ments of other days and ages. The early ex­pe­ri­ences of the race or the or­der are rest­ful to rem­i­nisce. And that is ex­actly why these artists are called re­ver­sion di­rec­tors—they as­sist in re­vert­ing the mem­ory to a for­mer state of de­vel­op­ment or to a less ex­pe­ri­enced sta­tus of be­ing.

48:4.11All be­ings en­joy this sort of re­ver­sion ex­cept those who are in­her­ent Cre­ators, hence au­to­matic self-re­ju­ve­na­tors, and cer­tain highly spe­cial­ized types of crea­tures, such as the power cen­ters and the phys­i­cal con­trol­lers, who are al­ways and eter­nally thor­oughly busi­nesslike in all their re­ac­tions. These pe­ri­odic re­leases from the ten­sion of func­tional duty are a reg­u­lar part of life on all worlds through­out the uni­verse of uni­verses but not on the Isle of Par­a­dise. Be­ings in­dige­nous to the cen­tral abode are in­ca­pable of de­ple­tion and are not, there­fore, sub­ject to re-en­er­giz­ing. And with such be­ings of eter­nal Par­a­dise per­fec­tion there can be no such re­ver­sion to evo­lu­tion­ary ex­pe­ri­ences.

48:4.12Most of us have come up through lower stages of ex­is­tence or through pro­gres­sive lev­els of our or­ders, and it is re­fresh­ing and in a mea­sure amus­ing to look back upon cer­tain episodes of our early ex­pe­ri­ence. There is a rest­ful­ness in the con­tem­pla­tion of that which is old to one’s or­der, and which lingers as a mem­ory pos­ses­sion of the mind. The fu­ture sig­ni­fies strug­gle and ad­vance­ment; it be­speaks work, ef­fort, and achieve­ment; but the past sa­vors of things al­ready mas­tered and achieved; con­tem­pla­tion of the past per­mits of re­lax­ation and such a care­free re­view as to pro­voke spirit mirth and a mor­ontia state of mind verg­ing on mer­ri­ment.

48:4.13Even mor­tal hu­mor be­comes most hearty when it de­picts episodes af­fect­ing those just a lit­tle be­neath one’s pres­ent de­vel­op­men­tal state, or when it por­trays one’s sup­posed su­pe­ri­ors falling vic­tim to the ex­pe­ri­ences which are com­monly as­so­ci­ated with sup­posed in­fe­ri­ors. You of Uran­tia have al­lowed much that is at once vul­gar and un­kind to be­come con­fused with your hu­mor, but on the whole, you are to be con­grat­u­lated on a com­par­a­tively keen sense of hu­mor. Some of your races have a rich vein of it and are greatly helped in their earthly ca­reers thereby. Ap­par­ently you re­ceived much in the way of hu­mor from your Adamic in­her­i­tance, much more than was se­cured of ei­ther mu­sic or art.

48:4.14All Sa­ta­nia, dur­ing times of play, those times when its in­hab­i­tants re­fresh­ingly res­ur­rect the mem­o­ries of a lower stage of ex­is­tence, is ed­i­fied by the pleas­ant hu­mor of a corps of re­ver­sion di­rec­tors from Uran­tia. The sense of ce­les­tial hu­mor we have with us al­ways, even when en­gaged in the most dif­fi­cult of as­sign­ments. It helps to avoid an overde­vel­op­ment of the no­tion of one’s self-im­por­tance. But we do not give rein to it freely, as you might say, “have fun,” ex­cept when we are in re­cess from the se­ri­ous as­sign­ments of our re­spec­tive or­ders.

48:4.15When we are tempted to mag­nify our self-im­por­tance, if we stop to con­tem­plate the in­fin­ity of the great­ness and grandeur of our Mak­ers, our own self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion be­comes sub­limely ridicu­lous, even verg­ing on the hu­mor­ous. One of the func­tions of hu­mor is to help all of us take our­selves less se­ri­ously. Hu­mor is the di­vine an­ti­dote for ex­al­ta­tion of ego.

48:4.16The need for the re­lax­ation and di­ver­sion of hu­mor is great­est in those or­ders of as­cen­dant be­ings who are sub­jected to sus­tained stress in their up­ward strug­gles. The two ex­tremes of life have lit­tle need for hu­mor­ous di­ver­sions. Prim­i­tive men have no ca­pac­ity there­for, and be­ings of Par­a­dise per­fec­tion have no need thereof. The hosts of Ha­vona are nat­u­rally a joy­ous and ex­hil­a­rat­ing as­sem­blage of su­premely happy per­son­al­i­ties. On Par­a­dise the qual­ity of wor­ship ob­vi­ates the ne­ces­sity for re­ver­sion ac­tiv­i­ties. But among those who start their ca­reers far be­low the goal of Par­a­dise per­fec­tion, there is a large place for the min­istry of the re­ver­sion di­rec­tors.

48:4.17The higher the mor­tal species, the greater the stress and the greater the ca­pac­ity for hu­mor as well as the ne­ces­sity for it. In the spirit world the op­po­site is true: The higher we as­cend, the less the need for the di­ver­sions of re­ver­sion ex­pe­ri­ences. But pro­ceed­ing down the scale of spirit life from Par­a­dise to the se­raphic hosts, there is an in­creas­ing need for the mis­sion of mirth and the min­istry of mer­ri­ment. Those be­ings who most need the re­fresh­ment of pe­ri­odic re­ver­sion to the in­tel­lec­tual sta­tus of pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ences are the higher types of the hu­man species, the mor­ontians, an­gels, and the Ma­te­rial Sons, to­gether with all sim­i­lar types of per­son­al­ity.

48:4.18Hu­mor should func­tion as an au­to­matic safety valve to pre­vent the build­ing up of ex­ces­sive pres­sures due to the mo­not­ony of sus­tained and se­ri­ous self-con­tem­pla­tion in as­so­ci­a­tion with the in­tense strug­gle for de­vel­op­men­tal prog­ress and no­ble achieve­ment. Hu­mor also func­tions to lessen the shock of the un­ex­pected im­pact of fact or of truth, rigid un­yield­ing fact and flex­i­ble ever-liv­ing truth. The mor­tal per­son­al­ity, never sure as to which will next be en­coun­tered, through hu­mor swiftly grasps—sees the point and achieves in­sight—the un­ex­pected na­ture of the sit­u­a­tion be it fact or be it truth.

48:4.19While the hu­mor of Uran­tia is ex­ceed­ingly crude and most inartis­tic, it does serve a valu­able pur­pose both as a health in­sur­ance and as a lib­er­a­tor of emo­tional pres­sure, thus pre­vent­ing in­ju­ri­ous ner­vous ten­sion and over­se­ri­ous self-con­tem­pla­tion. Hu­mor and play—re­lax­ation—are never re­ac­tions of pro­gres­sive ex­er­tion; al­ways are they the echoes of a back­ward glance, a rem­i­nis­cence of the past. Even on Uran­tia and as you now are, you al­ways find it re­ju­ve­nat­ing when for a short time you can sus­pend the ex­er­tions of the newer and higher in­tel­lec­tual ef­forts and re­vert to the more sim­ple en­gage­ments of your an­ces­tors.

48:4.20The prin­ci­ples of Uran­tian play life are phil­o­soph­i­cally sound and con­tinue to ap­ply on up through your as­cend­ing life, through the cir­cuits of Ha­vona to the eter­nal shores of Par­a­dise. As as­cen­dant be­ings you are in pos­ses­sion of per­sonal mem­o­ries of all for­mer and lower ex­is­tences, and with­out such iden­tity mem­o­ries of the past there would be no ba­sis for the hu­mor of the pres­ent, ei­ther mor­tal laugh­ter or mor­ontia mirth. It is this re­call­ing of past ex­pe­ri­ences that pro­vides the ba­sis for pres­ent di­ver­sion and amuse­ment. And so you will en­joy the ce­les­tial equiv­a­lents of your earthly hu­mor all the way up through your long mor­ontia, and then in­creas­ingly spir­i­tual, ca­reers. And that part of God (the Ad­juster) which be­comes an eter­nal part of the per­son­al­ity of an as­cen­dant mor­tal con­tributes the over­tones of di­vin­ity to the joy­ous ex­pres­sions, even spir­i­tual laugh­ter, of the as­cend­ing crea­tures of time and space.