A farmer purchases an old, run-down, abandoned farm with plans
to turn it into a thriving enterprise. The fields are grown over with
weeds, the farmhouse is falling apart, and the fences are collapsing
all around.

During his first day of work, the town preacher stops by to
bless the mans work, saying, May you and God work together to make
this the farm of your dreams!

A few months later, the preacher stops by again to call on the
farmer. Lo and behold, its like a completely different place — the
farm house is completely rebuilt and in excellent condition, there is
plenty of cattle and other livestock happily munching on feed in
well-fenced pens, and the fields are filled with crops planted in neat
rows. Amazing! the preacher says. Look what God and you have
accomplished together!

Yes, reverend, says the farmer, but remember what the farm
was like when God was working it alone!

As Bill was approaching mid-life, physically he was a mess. Not only was he going bald, but years of office work had given him a large pot belly. The last straw came when he asked a woman co-worker out on a date, and she all but laughed at him. That does it, he decided. Im going to start a whole new regimen. He began attending aerobics classes. He started working out with weights. He changed his diet. And he got an expensive hair transplant. In six months, he was a different man. Again, he asked his female co-worker out, and this time she accepted.

There he was, all dressed up for the date, looking better than he ever had. He stood poised to ring the womans doorbell, when a bolt of lightning struck him and knocked him off his feet. As he lay there dying, he turned his eyes toward the heavens and said, Why, God, why now? After all Ive been through, how could you do this to me?

From up above, there came a voice, Sorry. I didnt not recoginize you.

Our local PBS outlet here has been showing a series of
Joseph Campbell lectures, as they always do when its
time to wring a little money out of the viewers. On a
recent episode, the late Professor Campbell was talking
about the time when life begins, and he told this little
story:

A Catholic priest, a Protestant minister, and a Jewish rabbi
were discussing when life begins.

Life begins, said the priest, at the moment of fertilization.
That is when God instills the spark of life into the fetus.

We believe, said the minister, that life begins at birth,
because that is when the baby becomes an individual and is
capable of making its own decisions and must learn about sin.

Youve both got it wrong, said the rabbi. Life begins
when the children have graduated from college and moved out of
the house…

As an ultimate test of his will power, a man decided to give up sex for Lent. Although not thrilled with the idea, his wife agreed to support him in this effort. The first few weeks werent too difficult. Things got tougher during the next couple of weeks, so the wife wore her dowdiest night clothes and chewed on garlic before going to bed. The last couple of weeks were extremely tough on the husband, so the wife took to locking the bedroom door and forcing the husband to sleep on the couch.

Easter morning finally came. A knock came on the wifes bedroom door.

KNOCK!!! KNOCK!!! KNOCK!!!

Husband: Guess who?

Wife: I know who it is!

Husband: Guess what I want?

Wife: I know what you want!

Husband: Guess what Im knockin with?

A woman was trying hard to get the catsup to come out of the bottle. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her four-year-old daughter to answer the phone. Its the minister, Mommy, the child said to her mother. She added to the priest, Mommy cant come to the phone right now. Shes hitting the bottle.

Seventy-year-old George went for his annual physical. All of his tests came back with normal results.
Doctor Smith said,
George, everything looks great physically. How are you doing mentally and emotionally? Are you at peace with yourself and do you have a good relationship with your God?

George replied,
God and me are tight. He knows I have poor eyesight, so hes fixed it so that when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, poof, the light goes on when I pee and then, poof, the light goes off when Im done.

Wow, commented Doctor
Smith, thats incredible!

A little later in the day Doctor Smith called Georges wife. Thelma, he said, George is just fine. Physically hes great.

But I had to call because Im in awe of his relationship with God. Is it true that he gets up during the night and, poof, the light goes on in the toilet and then, poof, the light goes off?

Thelma exclaimed, That old fool. Hes been peeing in the refrigerator again!

Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters
near Paris found English to be an easy language … until they tried to
pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below
were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said hed prefer six months
at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.


ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
======================

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how its written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciations OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Wont it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
Its a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough —
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

— Author Unknown

For Catholics, death is a promotion.

Two women were sitting in the doctors waiting room comparing notes on their various disorders.

I want a baby more than anything in the world, said the first, But I guess it is impossible.

I used to feel just the same way, said the second. But then everything changed. Thats why Im here. Im going to have a baby in three months.

You must tell me what you did.

I went to a faith healer.

But Ive tried that. My husband and I went to one for nearly a year and it didnt help a bit.

The other woman smiled and whispered,

Try going alone, next time, dearie.

1. Hey! Its my turn to sit in the front pew.
2. I was so enthralled, I never noticed your sermon went 25 minutes over time.
3. Personally I find witnessing much more enjoyable than golf.
4. Ive decided to give our church the $500 a month I used to send to TV evangelists.
5. I volunteer to be the permanent teacher for the Junior High Sunday School class.
6. Forget the denominational minimum salary, lets pay our pastor so he can live like we do.
7. I love it when we sing hymns Ive never heard before!
8. Since were all here, lets start the service early.
9. Pastor, wed like to send you to this Bible seminar in the Bahamas.
10. Nothing inspires me and strengthens my commitment like our annual stewardship campaign!