The Seer

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The Rev Harland Butterley, a much appreciated Australian clerical speaker, was invited to speak at a monthly lunch meeting of the Rotary Club. Also present at the meeting was a reporter from the local newspaper, who enjoyed as much as anyone the vicar’s light-hearted ecclesiastical anecdotes.

At the end of his speech, Butterley approached the reporter and begged him not to print too many of his tales as he wished to use them at future speaking engagements. To Butterley’s dismay, when he read the newspaper a few days later, the reporter had written, “The vicar made an excellent speech but most of the stories he told cannot be repeated here.”

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Addressing a group of schoolboys, a bishop gave this example of moral courage — a boy in a dormitory who, in front of the others, kneels down and says his prayers before hopping into bed.

The bishop then asked the boys if they could think of another example.

“Sir,” piped up one boy, “A bishop in a dormitory full of other bishops who hops into bed without saying his prayers!”

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Customer to optician: At first I was an agnostic, then I saw the light! I became a seeker, then I saw the light! I became a devotee, then I saw the light and became a mystic. Then I saw the light and merged with The Infinite .… I’d like to buy some sun-glasses please.

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“Scuse me Mate?,” said the passenger from the back seat, tapping the taxi driver on the shoulder.

The driver recoiled instantly in fright, lost control of the cab, swerved and nearly hit a bus, jumped the curb and stopped just inches from the plate-glass window of an office.

For a few moments, everything was silent. Then the driver said, “Geeze, you scared the daylights out of me!”

“I’m sorry,” said the passenger. “I didn’t realise a tap on the shoulder would frighten you so much.”

“It isn’t your fault Mate,” the driver replied. “Today is my first day driving a cab. I’ve been driving a hearse for the last 25 years.”

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The nice thing about egotists is that they don’t talk about other people.
Lucille S Harper

He is a self-made man and worships his creator.
John Bright

No egotism is so insufferable as that of the religious person with regard to his or her soul.
W Somerset Maugham

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A woman dreamt that as a beautiful young maiden, she was captured by an Arab prince. He took her across the dessert on his horse to a wonderful marble palace in a green oasis. The prince carried her up the wide stairway to a gorgeous bedroom and threw her on the soft white double bed.

“What are you going to do with me?” she cried with apprehension and excitement.

“I don’t know lady.” The prince replied, “It’s your dream!”

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Barberine: Listen! God is my witness that I’ll be content with the old chateau and the little land we possess, for all my life, if you would be pleased to stay there with me. I waken, go to the kitchen, to the poultry-yard, get your meals ready, go to church with you, read a page of a book, do some darning, and then fall asleep contented in your arms.

Ulric: What an angel you are!

Barberine: Yes, I’m an angel but I’m a woman angel! That is to say, if I had a pair of horses, we’d drive behind ‘them to mass. And I shouldn’t be sorry if my cap had gold braid and if my skirts were a trifle longer — to vex my neighbours!

From, Barberine, by Alfred De Musset

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When four of Santa’s elves got sick, and the trainee elves did not produce the toys as fast as the regular ones, Santa was beginning to feel the pressure of being behind schedule.

Then Mrs Claus told Santa that her mother was coming to visit. This stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped the fence and were out, heaven knows where. More stress.

Then when he finally secured a big bag of toys on the sleigh, one of the tie ropes slipped and the toy bag fell to the ground scattering the toys.

So, frustrated, Santa went into the house for a mug of hot apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered that the elves had hidden the liquor, and there was nothing to drink.

In his frustration, he accidentally dropped his favorite drinking mug, and it broke into hundreds of little pieces all over the kitchen floor.

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritable Santa trudged to the door. He opened the door, and there was a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.

The angel said, very cheerfully, “Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn’t it a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?”

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.

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A man, obsessed with the idea that he was dead, was being treated by a psychiatrist. The doctor used all the known techniques at his command but to no avail. Finally, he tried appealing to the patient’s logic.

“Do dead men feel pain?” asked the doctor.

“No, of course not,” answered the patient.

“All right,” said the doctor, “now let us try an experiment.”

He took a sharp needle and pricked the man’s hand. The patient jumped up with a yell.

“There! What do you say now?” asked the psychiatrist.

“Well, isn’t that amazing!” answered the patient. “Dead people do feel pain.”

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I saw Eckhart speak in London on Saturday, and Summer has given me permission to indulge in rambling on about him so….

The question and answer session was very powerful. One lady who had recently lost her mother asked him about grief. He said that last year he lost both his mother (in August) and his father (in November) saying it was strange because they didn’t even live together. He said that he cried and that waves of grief occurred and subsided. He said that it was important not to deny the grief or push it away, but to bring acceptance to it.

Another guy asked a long rambling question about having an impulse to go to America, and wondered whether he was just emulating Eckhart, or how he could tell if this was an impulse he should follow, finishing his monologue with “Oh, yeah, and what about sex?”

The audience just collapsed with laughter, it was sooo funny! lolEckhart too! Then Eckhart said “Well, maybe that’s the REAL question!”

He said that when he was doing a retreat in India there were a lot of monkeys roaming freely around the village, and one day he encountered a pair of them having sex in the street. They then separated and walked away without any fuss. Eckhart realised that they just don’t have a problem with sex. The impulse arises, may or may not be satisfied, then the monkeys move on. It’s only the human mind that gets fixated with sex, using the subject for its own perpetuation (ie more thought) and creates endless complexities and dramas out of it.

He said that as the mind becomes more still, a person’s sex life can therefore become easier, more ermmm satisfying.

Then right at the end, he was winding up the talk, was literally about to deliver his last 4 words when….and I had my eyes closed because it was quite meditative….I heard the audience gasp and opened my eyes in time to see one of the giant screens that Eckhart was appearing on, fall backwards across the stage. Eckhart laughed, finished his sentence “…there is no teacher” and walked off to a standing ovation.

It was such a joy to see him in person. I could swear he was talking to just me most of the time!

By an anonymous attendee