I gave serious thought to his statement before responding. "But it is right or good or fair that someone gets a grip on the meaning of life at the expense of someone else's faith?" I asked him."Is that right? Is there a line that comedians ought to not even get close to?"

"Ma, people have to lighten up," he said said. "Stuff isn't as serious as religious people make it out to be." Mind you, my son is 19 years old, but I found his perspective interesting and engaging.

"Is that what Myers means," I asked, "when he said that the way to become enlightened is to lighten up?"

My son gave me a "now-you-finally-get-it" look that only a 19-year-old can give a mother.

"Precisely," he said, satisfied that he had taught me well.

Much as I liked and like the notion of religious people being too serious too much of the time, I had to pause and think about the Hindus, what they might be thinking and feeling, and why. I had to wonder what makes any of us in this country defensive. When it comes to faith, is there a line over which comedians should not step? Are there rules that all comedians should study and know before they do dialogues or make movies? Are they supposed to care about what those being talked about feel about their work?

I found myself wondering what it is that makes people defensive, and what I came up with is that it is insecurity. A professor of mine in seminary said that people only get mad and defensive when something being said is too close to being true or is too much within the realm of possibility. "If you say I am stupid, I can laugh with you, or even at you," he said, "because I know that you're not even close to being right."

"But if you say I have a horrible temper and am capable of hitting my child and hurting him or her, I might get defensive because I know that's true," he said. "In that area of my life, I am insecure about who I am and what I am capable of."

As I thought about this "Love Guru" discussion, I thought that the anger and protests being launched must be based in insecurity. Even though the United States is pluralistic, we do much better tolerating other people and cultures than we do accepting them. Minorities in this country are not apt to trust the majority population when it comes to depicting their lives, their beliefs ... and especially their religion.

What ought to be the case is that we believe in what we believe in, we see the strengths as well as the weaknesses of our religions, and we move forward, our bottom lines of faith intact. If I know what I believe, and I know that nothing is perfect or beyond being scrutinized, then I am not apt to bristle if someone makes fun of that belief system.

Case in point: I absolutely hate the way the Black Church is depicted in movies and on television. The portrayals are always so shallow and predictably stereotypical. But sometimes, what I see on the screen is funny. I have to admit that some of what I am seeing, though it is exaggerated, is real. So, I can laugh ... because I know what the Black Church is in spite of what the screen is saying.

When we are insecure about who we are, or about our status in this country, or about being accepted in these United States, we are more sensitive. Everything counts. Everything is super important. That, coupled with the distrust minorities have of the majority population - a distrust that reinforces a belief that the majority population is only concerned with making a profit at the expense of anyone who will help that profit happen - makes for testy reactions.

Add to that that it is a human thing to give a little more sway to a comedian who is part of the group he or she is parodying. I laugh a little differently when Richard Pryor talks about the Black Church than when someone of a different ethnicity does it. Why? Because I trust him. I trust that he grew up in the same Black Church that I did, so he knows what he's talking about ... and he loves that which he is making fun of.

The reason it's really tricky for someone NOT of the faith he or she is parodying to make fun is because those in the faith do not trust the motives of the comedian, and those in the faith absolutely know that the comedian does not love that which is being made fun of.

So, people get insecure, then defensive, then angry.

No harm is done, though, no line is crossed in the parody unless the comedian maligns the faith, intentionally or unintentionally, or unless the comedian maligns the deity of that faith. You can talk about the tenets of a faith, but leave the deity alone. If Richard Pryor made fun of Jesus in a way that somehow degraded him, there would be no laughter. Not from me.

Mike Myers isn't trying to convert people or to turn them away from Hinduism. He is trying to make people laugh. And he will undoubtedly do that.

But maybe he should have stayed with Christianity. A minister or a priest trying to use the love Jesus talked about might have made people less insecure. People who wear turbans and who have faiths that are not familiar to Americans make Americans nervous. People who see the movie might laugh, but might also walk away with horrible stereotypes reinforced.

The line crossed, for those who feel the need to defend not only their faith but their very existence, is one of cultural respect.

Thing is, it's too bad that people will feel a need to defend their faith. God, no matter what faith one happens to be, is pretty tough. God doesn't need all the drama.

It doesn't matter what one puts in a movie. At the end of the day, what's really important it not what we say we believe, but how we live what we say we believe.