I admit to being way too ticklish.

I also apparently have a funny bone embedded too close to the surface. Even in the most dour situations, I seem to be able to find something to giggle about.

If that's a sign of immaturity or insensitivity, so be it. If it means you can't risk leaving me alone with people I should be trying to impress or who feel they're deserving of a certain modicum of respect, I understand your trepidations.

I'm sorry, I just find a lot of things funny and/or just can't take them as seriously as I'm supposed to do.

I've been elbowed in the ribs by too many dates for laughing at the wrong places in a movie -- or for laughing too hard at the right ones. And I've been accused of finding humor in things which are inappropriate, juvenile and tasteless.

Yep, that pretty much nails me.

So, of course, I need to provide a few examples.

Many of you may not find what follows funny. But I'm guessing more than a few will fight back a grin, stifle a chortle or just bust loose.

When it comes right down to it, there's just a whole lot in life that is just plain silly. And embracing the silly is much more fun than getting all judgmental about it.

Just another way to -- Enjoy Your Sunday.

 

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There's a tendency in the media to paint those who hold to a religious faith as being rigid and humorless, dour to the point of fanaticism.

And there's a lot about organized religions to give many people pause. As someone tallying the atrocities committed in the name of one God or another once quipped, "The one headline you'll never read is "Atheist Extremists Massacre Agnostic Enclave".

All of us have also been forced to endure those bland and hollow sounding pronouncements before sporting events where lives might well be lost as if invoking blessings takes the negative edge off our anticipation of the mayhem to come.

And then, along comes somebody who seems to understand the over-marketed, over-macho'd world of corporatized sport for what it is and also knows that if we really were made in the image of some Supreme Being, that's where we got our sense of humor.

Pastor Joe Nelms from Last Saturday's Nascar Nationwide Series race in Nashville, Tennessee…

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