Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
Finding God in Laughter
Have you ever found yourself laughing so hard it felt like spiritual medicine? That's exactly what we explore today through the remarkable life of comedy legend Tim Conway.
I recently finished reading Conway's biography, "What's So Funny," and discovered something fascinating – this comedy icon who delighted millions on The Carol Burnett Show was a committed Christian. His approach to humor reflected his faith: clean, joyful, and uplifting without ever resorting to vulgarity. Conway's comedy sketches with Harvey Korman created some of television's most unforgettable moments, particularly when Conway was given creative freedom to improvise beyond the script.
Ready for some spiritual laughter therapy? Check out the link below to Conway's legendary "Dentist" sketch – guaranteed to make you smile.
Here is the link to one of Tim's funniest sketches.
The Dentist https://youtu.be/9IUSM4EKcRI
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mac and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. I have just finished reading a book that I enjoyed very, very much. It wasn't terribly spiritual, but it really strengthened my spirit because it made me laugh. Spiritual, but it really strengthened my spirit because it made me laugh, and when I can find something that can make me laugh when there's things going on around me that can be very stressful, I like those things because it lifts my spirit. It really does. The book was called what's so Funny, and it's the biography of the very funny man, tim Conway.
Speaker 1:If any of you, like myself, are old enough to know what TV was like back in the 1970s, the Carol Burnett Show was one of the very best, and the last three seasons of the Carol Burnett Show featured Tim Conway. The sketches with Tim and Carol were hilarious, but what was even funnier were the sketches between Tim Conway and Harvey Corman. Tim had a way of making Harvey Corman break up and just not able to keep a straight face. I learned recently that the Carol Burnett show was recorded twice on Friday night. The same show before different audiences. The first time it was performed, everybody followed the script as it had been written. But for the second show, tim Conway was given a free hand to do whatever he wanted, and out of that came some of the funniest moments in television history, like the sketch about the dentist with his very first patient, or the mama's family sketch where Tim is telling the story about the two Siamese elephants, which is the funniest sketch, I think, of any of them that I've ever seen. They all make me laugh very, very hard, no matter how many times I see them.
Speaker 1:And did you know that Tim Conway, who passed away back in 2019, did you know that he was a Christian? I just recently found that out as I was reading his book, but it makes perfect sense to me because he was funny in one of the purest ways. He never resorted to foul language or vulgarities, he was just plain funny in a good, clean way, in every situation. He was a funny guy. So to find out that he was a Christian, it really didn't surprise me. Here's a part of Tim's story where he tells about how he grew in his faith in Jesus Christ, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:In high school he played football and he said that during a high school game he got slammed in the back, fell to the ground and he couldn't move, he said. He said he was on the ground for minutes, unable to talk or feel anything below his neck. Somebody leaned over and told him to get up and walk it off, because they simply didn't recognize how serious everything was. But when he couldn't stand up without falling over, his teammates grabbed his arms and legs and carried him off the field. They took him to the hospital. A doctor took an x-ray. They didn't find anything broken, so they told him to wear a neck brace for a few weeks and therefore get on and keep going. It wasn't until many years later, when he was having back pain, that he had his back x-rayed again. The doctor told him that the pain was coming from a broken vertebrae. Conway told the doctor that he'd never fractured a vertebrae, but the doctor assured him that somewhere along the line he had had and that's when he remembered that football injury the doctor explained that he believed that when the players picked him up by his arms and his legs. They actually stretched his back out and the vertebrae went back in place.
Speaker 1:If they hadn't have done that, tim would have likely have been permanently disabled. He said that contemplating the thought of being paralyzed for life caused me to examine deeper issues. Ever since that incident on that football field, which might have altered the course of my life, he said, jesus and I have stayed in constant touch. His spiritual faith in Christ grew from a heart that was thankful for what God had done for him and being spared from being paralyzed for the rest of his life. In an interview in 2013, he said that his spiritual path wasn't always straight. He said all straight lines get a little crooked from time to time, but I tried to maintain a decent life, one that understood who Jesus Christ was, and that he had to be number one in my life. Sadly, tim Conway has left this earth. He's gone off to his reward, but he certainly has left us this legacy of laughter.
Speaker 1:Did you know that laughter is a gift from God, that God wants us to be able to laugh and to enjoy things? Listen to what Jesus said in John, chapter 15. He said If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. Joy is not just a big smile. Joy is enjoying. It is laughing and shouting and experiencing life to the full that God has for us.
Speaker 1:Philippians 4 and 4 says Rejoice in the Lord. Always and again I say rejoice. God wants us to laugh. I encourage you to laugh. There is an old saying that says laughter is the best medicine, and I truly believe that it is. One of the great medicines that God has given us is to be able to laugh at times when we are hurting, when we are sad, when we are going through difficulties. Find something that will make you laugh In your show notes today there are two video links. Each one will take you to one of Tim Conway's greatest sketches, the two that I have chosen the Dentist and the Elephant. I know you will enjoy them. Have a great day. Everyone Choose to be happy. Find something to laugh at that will make you smile and then share that smile and that laughter with someone else around you. God bless y'all. We'll talk again tomorrow. Thank you for listening today, and I invite you to join me Monday to Friday, right here on Starting Right with Danny Mac.
