Jokes Inspired by a Sermon Dept

Fr. Walter's sermon last Sunday reminded me of a couple of jokes that I don't think I've told on this blog; so now you're in trouble.

You are not to conclude from this that Fr. Walter's sermons are laughable.

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Three priests from the Hill Country are having lunch in Austin. At a lull in the conversation, one of them says, "Fellows, I have a problem and I wonder whether you guys have any useful advice."

"What's the problem?"

"Well, a colony of bats has moved into the church attic and I can't get rid of 'em. I mean, I don't even know how to start...I borrowed the junior warden's shotgun and went up there and fired off a couple of blasts to try to scare 'em away, but they're still there plus now the roof leaks. So I'm afraid to try anything else and make the situation still worse...you guys have any ideas?"

The second priest is shaking his head in sympathy. "Brother, I know exactly how you feel -- I have the same problem, and I haven't gotten anywhere either."

"What have you tried?"

"Well, I went down to Callahan's and got me some live traps, and the sexton and I went and trapped all those bats and put 'em in his pickup truck and drove out past Blanco and turned 'em loose...and they beat us back to the church."

The third priest has been sitting placidly with his martini throughout the conversation. They turn to him. "So has the same thing happened to you?"

"It has."

"Did you figure out a solution?"

Unflappably: "The problem is solved."

They are very excited now. "How in heaven's name did you solve it??"

He leans comfortably back in his chair. "Well, it turned out not to be too hard when all was said and done. I just took all those bats, and I baptized 'em, and I confirmed 'em...and I haven't seen 'em since."

--

I had not realized until last Sunday that Fr. Walter had been an engineer at NASA (at least that's what I think he said...you know how it is, you're sort of dozing and maybe you don't catch all the finer details of what the priest says...), and so I was led to wonder whether Fr. Walter is familiar with the debate about what kind of engineer God is?

Mechanical engineers claim God as their own, pointing to the skeletal system, the variety of types of joints, the ligaments and muscle structures. But double-E's come right back and say, nonsense, clearly God is an electrical engineer -- just look at the brain and nervous system, and try to imagine how far we still are from even beginning to understand what's going on inside there.

But civil engineers know the truth: God is a civil engineer. For who but a civil engineer would run a toxic waste line smack through the middle of a recreational facility?

UPDATE: It turns out I really like that last joke, as this is the third time I've told it on the blog (and the third version, of course, as I seem incapable of telling a joke the same way twice). This shows how air-headed I am: I was sure I had already told the first one, and spent I five minutes trying to find the (as it turns out, non-existent) previous post. But the second one, I didn't bother to look for because I knew I had never posted it. [shaking head in rueful hopelessness]