Stand Up Spirituality

I just returned from Gary Renard's workshop in Amsterdam, on May 22 (booksigning at ABC/Treehouse) and May 23rd (Workshop at the beautiful Amstelkerk), and it was delightful, including the fact that I got to sign some books as well. In the newsletter of his Dutch publishers, Altamira-Becht, there was a terriffic account of the whole workshop, and the writer of same coined a phrase which bears repeating. In a play on Gary's constant stream of jokes, which are sprinkled throughout his otherwise very serious workshop - I guess as a reminder that seriousness causes reincarnation - he dubbed the performance "standup spirituality." Meanwhile Jan Westerhof, a Dutch painter, whose triptych was the background of the presentation, took some pictures and decided that Gary looked a bit like Benny Hill (see picture).

Very much in the spirit of Logion 42, "Be Passersby" and in a play on the Course's notion that we forgot to laugh at the "tiny mad idea," (the thought of separation), Gary peppers his books and his presentations with humor. At the same time, he lets us have a look in the kitchen of his own learning of the Course, through his books and workshops, including numerous "embarrassing" and very "personal" episodes, which is a reflection of his profound understanding that nothing, but nothing in this life is to be taken seriously. The way out of hell is definitely sprinkled with humor, simply from seeing how completely ridiculous the shenanigans of the ego are, quite in the sense of what Ken Wapnick likes to call: "A dysfunctional solutions to a non-existent problem," and we spend most of our energies on dressing it up and making it look very seriously, now that's a laugh.