2005 Sun Valley Gathering, Part 1
Humor & Spirituality
JJ: I’ve never started a gathering with a joke but I feel impressed to start with one today. Has anyone ever heard the joke about the three degrees of hell? Nobody? That’s great. That means you’re in for a good joke. This mobster named Lenny is kind of a bad dude and he dies. He meets the devil and says, “Well, I knew I’d end up in hell. What do you have waiting for me?”
The devil replies, “We’ve modernized down here so instead of just having fire and brimstone we’re giving people choices now. We have three degrees of hell. The good part is you get to pick one to go to. We’re going to open the doors to the three degrees and let you look. Once you choose one you go through the door and there is no retreat.”
So, the devil opens the first door and everyone in there is standing on their heads on razor blades.
Lenny says, “This is pretty horrible. I don’t think I can handle this. Show me the next degree.”
So the devil takes him to the next degree and there is everyone standing on their heads on sharp swords.” Lenny says, “Oh man, this is even worse. Show me the third degree.”
So he shows him the third degree and there is everyone standing waist deep in fresh manure drinking coffee. Lenny thinks, “This isn’t that great but it isn’t as bad as the first two.” So he chooses this degree. Then a couple of the devil’s imps throw the guy into the fresh manure.
A couple minutes later the devil claps his hands and yells, “Alright everyone. The coffee break’s over. Back on your heads!”
(Laughter from audience.)
Tonight, we’re going to talk about experience and a little humor is a good lead in for this topic. Have you often wondered if God has a sense of humor? Some people say that when God made man and man thought he was going to be one of the gods because God says: “The man is going to be one of us,” that some Christians interpret that as God joking. In this case I do not think any joke was involved, but let me tell you a true story about my friend Wayne that you may find somewhat humorous.
Back in high school Wayne and I used to go to Seminary class together, and talk about serious, this teacher of ours was so serious that you couldn’t crack a smile or you were being irreverent to God. Wayne wasn’t serious at all. As a kid he was even worse than he is now. Wayne would often come in late. When he came in late, he didn’t just come in silently and pull up a chair. He would go to the furthest chair in the room. He would stumble over things on the way and knock over a chair or trip over someone’s foot. He always created a disturbance. The teacher was giving a class on something really serious and spiritual from the Bible and Wayne comes in late and stumbles across everything. Looking at the teacher’s face you could tell he was just seething inside and he wanted to get mad but he felt it was wrong so he kept containing his temper. He became more and more irritated with Wayne every day as the class went through the season, but he tried to be patient.
After class, there weren’t enough cars to take us all to school so we’d all rush to get a ride. About two thirds of us could get a ride to school. If you couldn’t squeeze into someone’s car, you had to walk a mile or so. So the faster we could get out of class the less the chance that we would have to walk.
So, Wayne, as we were having the closing prayer, would sneak out during the prayer. He always wound up getting a ride that way. As we were praying I’d open my eyes and see Wayne sneaking out then look at the teacher. You could see steam almost rising off the top of his head. He’d turn beet red like he wanted to strangle that son of a gun. So, Wayne irritated the teacher at the beginning of the class then he irritated him at the end of the class and sometimes irritated him in the middle of the class with questions.
One day I came to seminary late myself and Wayne was outside the class with this new yo-yo. He was standing over the stairwell playing with it. It had a very long string on it. I said, “Aren’t you going to seminary this morning?”
Wayne said, “No, I’m experimenting with this yoyo.”
This other kid named Jerry, from a lower class, came up to me and says, “Maybe I’ll go in your class today.” Then he changed his mind as I entered the door. He stayed outside hidden from sight.
The teacher was talking about the Holy Ghost and every time he mentioned the Holy Ghost Jerry, who was out in the hall with a voice that sounded a little like Wayne would go, “woooooooo” every time the teacher mentioned the Holy Ghost.
You should’ve seen Paul, the teacher. He started turning red and you could tell he was ready to pop a cork. He tried to control himself and continue and he mentioned the Holy Ghost again and each time he did Jerry made his best ghost impression by saying, “wooooooo.”
The teacher turns red again but gets hold of himself and mentioned the Holy Ghost one more time and then comes the ghostly sound again, “wooooooo.”
The teacher says, “I’ll be right back!” He ran out there and I thought Jerry would be in trouble but ole Jerry hid behind the door. So there is Wayne with his yo-yo and of course the teacher figured it had to be Wayne mocking the Holy Ghost.
(Laughter from audience.)
So the teacher grabs Wayne and throws him against the wall. Wayne isn’t the type of person to let anyone throw him against a wall so he grabs the teacher and throws him against the wall. They threw each other against the wall a couple times and Wayne says, “What’s going on?”
(Laughter from audience.)
Finally it got sorted out. It was the one time the teacher had a chance to punish Wayne and it was the one time that Wayne was innocent. Any other time he would have gone after Wayne, Wayne would’ve been 100% guilty.
Wayne, speaking from the audience states:
“He didn’t believe me and I got kicked out of seminary.”
JJ: He didn’t believe you? You got kicked out of seminary over that? You were completely innocent! I could’ve been a witness. You got kicked out for the whole year? I could’ve verified that for you but you probably wanted to get kicked out though, knowing you. Your mom made you go, didn’t she?
Audience: “Explain to us what seminary is, JJ.”
JJ: Wayne and I grew up in the Mormon Church. In the Mormon Church before school starts they have a seminary program for the Mormon kids. One year you learn about the New Testament, another year, the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon and the church history. There are four years. It starts early in the morning before school and none of us liked to go because we had to get up early and go before school started. Wayne’s mom always picked me up and took me and I was almost always late and it irritated her. We weren’t real excited about going but most of the kids’ parents made them go. Wayne was probably happy to be kicked out if I know him.
“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.” — George Santayana (1863 – 1952)
Posted July 30, 2009
To search the website, containing millions of words, replace the word “search” with the word or phrase you want to find and place the entire line in the Google search box.
“Search” site:freeread.com
Join JJ’s Facebook group HERE
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE