A Visit to Two Houses

I enjoy comedy, particularly stand-up. I like laughing, and thankfully, it doesn’t take much to tickle my funny bone. In my free time, I’ll frequently peruse my favorite comedians’ YouTube channels, or see if I can find a new comic to give me some laughs.

The not-so-funny thing about comedy is that its positive effects don’t last. I might remember a bit of a hilarious routine a few days later, but eventually, I’ll forget that I ever watched the video or heard the joke. Comedy is, by nature, short-lived. Like a drug that relieves the sensation of pain, comedy can temporarily alleviate the suffering of the painful present, if only for a few hours. And that’s not a bad thing. Solomon tells us that merriment is a good medicine (Proverbs 15:13), and I can attest to the relief that humor can bring to a weary soul.

But the superficial nature of comedy is what makes it dangerous. If we consume nothing but mirth, it can become a substitute for the necessity of dealing with the nitty-gritty substance of real life. And that’s why the same inspired sage who advised laughter as a sort of emotional opiate, also advised that it’s “better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart.” (Ecclesiastes 7:2)

Recently, Mikaela and I watched a dramatization of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House (for those of you who care, it was the BBC 2005 version starring Gillian Anderson, Anna Maxwell Martin and Charles Dance). Inasmuch as I enjoy comedy, I appreciate substantive, thought-provoking drama even more, even if it tends towards heaviness. Bleak House was certainly such fare, and though I knew it would be Dickens, I wasn’t prepared for the tragic fates of several of the main characters (spoiler alert!). Lady Deadlock chooses suicide rather than face the potential consequences of bad choices she made decades before. Richard Carstone pours the whole energies of his life into what is only a chance of wealth, instead of seeking a diligent means to provide and sustain what he already has. He dies young, consumed and broken when his chance vanishes. And Mr. Tulkinghorn, who lives his life manipulating, intimidating, and destroying others, is himself destroyed by a bullet to the heart. 

Bleak House isn’t all bleak; several protagonists see bright days after dark ones and reap the pleasant fruit of investing in the worthwhile. But it’s the dark days’ lessons that seem most poignant; lessons that though dark are yet divine. Lady Deadlock might have had a different end had she considered Mark 8:35: “For whosever will save his life shall lose it; but whosever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel’s, the same shall save it.” Richard Carstone ignored the question of his most beloved friends,“Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.”(Proverbs 23:5). And perhaps Mr. Tulkinghorn might have lived a longer, less brutish life, had he paid heed to Solomon’s admonition that “He who digs a pit will fall into it, and whoever breaks through a wall will be bitten by a serpent.” (Ecclesiastes 10:8)

Stories like Bleak House are helpful if we want to have the wisdom of God deeply imprinted on our souls. For in reading (or watching) them, we visit the “house of mourning.” And the lessons we find there, unlike the short-lived effects of the "house of feasting," will stay with us for good, if we take them to heart.