Sunday, June 1, 2014

... !!! ...

A world-weary, spiritually hungry man joins a monastery.  They let him in on the condition that he take a vow of silence.  He's allowed to speak two words every seven years.  After the first seven years he says "awful draft."  After seven more years of silence he says "bad food."  Another seven years pass and he says "I quit."  The abbott says to him, "That doesn't surprise me.  You've done nothing but complain since you got here."

I only recently came across that joke, so I didn't realize what an old chestnut it was.  I told it to a friend of mine tonight and he knew it beat for beat.  That does figure.  He's very devout and probably knows most of the Catholic jokes.  Except maybe the obscene ones.

1 comment:

susan said...

Here's another old one he may not have heard (and it's not obscene either):

A Zen master was walking on the beach not long after a storm had blown over. Hundreds of starfish that had been washed up by the waves were beginning to die in the sharp sunlight. The master picked up the starfish one by one and threw them back into the sea.

A fisherman who had been observing came up to him. “Why do you do this? Every time there’s a storm, this happens on every beach for hundreds of miles. You can’t save them all, so what difference does your attempt make?”

“It will make a difference – to this one,” replied the master, as he flung yet another starfish into the water.