Three Jokes That Made Me Laugh in the Middle of Life’s Heaviness

My blogging has been very light lately. I think my creativity is at a pretty low ebb, and the reason seems to be that I’ve been preoccupied with some unusually serious issues. I’m not complaining. We all deal with hard things from time to time, and as a pastor, it goes with the territory. Jesus is still on the throne, and I know He’s working His will.

But one of the gifts God has given me in the middle of Heavy Things is laughter. More than once in recent weeks, my wife and I have been stressing late at night, and what helped us keep our sanity is silliness. Busting up over dumb jokes, or stupid movie lines we both remembered.

Here are three examples that cracked us up.

First from the movie “The Princess Bride.” There are many memorable hilarities in this film, but this one is from the “battle of wits” between the supercilious Vizzini and “The Man in Black.” Vizzini, overly impressed with his intellect, thinks he’ll beat anyone in a battle of wits. (Here's the clip. It's only 12 seconds, and it made me laugh again.)

And the actual dialogue.

Vizzini: I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains.
Man in Black: You're that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Man in Black: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons. 

Here’s another one we found  shooting-milk-out-of-your-nose funny.

An unmarried woman gives birth to twins, little boys, and since she can’t care for them, allows them to be adopted. One boy ended up with an Egyptian family, and they named him Amal. His twin brother grew up in Spain and his adoptive parents named him Juan.

Years later, the birthmother received a letter from Juan, including a picture. She was so excited to hear from one of her sons. She said to her friend, “Oh, if only I could get a picture of my other boy, too!” But her wise friend said, “When you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Amal!”

One more after-midnight knee slapper. 

A young blond wife was worried her husband might be cheating on her. She left work early,  hurried home, and sure enough, caught her husband with another woman. Distraught, she grabbed a handgun and held it to her own head. “Honey,” pleaded her husband. “Put the gun down.” “You’re next,” she said.

Jokes at midnight may not be the only medicine, but they sure help!