Evening Prayer Puns

The moth drops down into the nearest chair and says “What’s the problem?”

Moth says “I don’t even know where to start. First of all, my boss is a vicious tyrant who gets off on the petty torments he puts me through day in and day out, and I’m too spineless to stand up to him, so I just take it and I’ve gradually come to hate myself for it. Also, every morning I wake up to the same prune-face old crone to whom I pledged my vows so many years ago. I used to love her, but that love has become like some sun-festering beached whale trying to die. We lost our daughter last year to one of the bitterest, coldest winters we’ve ever had to face in this region. Isn’t it funny, doc, how all the prayer circles and charity drives in the world amount to pretty much nothing in the face of that cold, impartial face of winter, that bleak, pounding, harsh fist of a callous environment, carrying on with its machinations without regard to our lives, loves, hopes and dreams? Isn’t that hysterical, Doc? Oh and then there’s my son. Doc, I don’t love him anymore. I don’t know what it is but I look in his eyes and I see that same harried look of gutless cowardice that I see when I stare at my own face in the mirror. If I wasn’t such a coward, Doc, I know I’d be able to scrape together enough pride to grab that cocked and loaded shotgun I keep by the bedside table, and just run amok and put an end to this grim facade once and for all. I start with the wife, then the boy of course before putting the barrell in my own mouth. Believe you me, Doc, I’d be doing the world a favor. I have nothing to look forward to but a continuation of this spiraling black hole that is my life, this existential cesspool that is the perpetuation of my lingering skid-mark on society. I despise people yet I crave their approval. I’m judgemental yet I care about nothing. I’m bitter, hateful and afraid. I’m alive yet I feel like the walking dead. This is it, Doc: I am a living, breathing, disease.”
The doctor stares at him for a while then finally says “Jeez, Moth, you definitely have some problems. But I’m a podiatrist. You need a psychiatrist. Why’d you come in here?”
The moth says,”Your light was on.”

After many years of wandering, he finally arrived in a small village in the middle of nowhere. The people there believed in the same religion as he did, but they had no church; they had to go to the nearest one which was in a small town 25 km's from there. The priest took the initiative, asked the Church for support, and with the help of the local men they built their own temple. From there on, he was celebrating the Sunday masses, joining together men and women in Holy Matrimony, and saying prayers at the funerals.

Many years passed by like that.

At the end of an ordinary mass, in early spring, on a chilly Sunday morning he was just guiding the people out of the church, was about to close the gates when an unknown man stepped into the churchyard.

With his dirty and torn clothes, he stood before the priest and said:

• Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was a good man, and even though he thought the request was a bit strange, he went back to the rectory, took out a lemon, cut it in half, took it back to the man and gave it to him, who looked back to the priest with gratitude. However, the priest was curious. He asked:

• Son, why do you need this half of a lemon? - with a fright on his face, and before the priest could have said a thing, he rushed out of the churchyard gate and took off.

A week later, around the same time, when the priest was leaving the church, he found himself in front of the same man in the churchyard. The man said:

• Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was surprised by the appearance of the man and his strange request. Of course he was good, went back to the rectory, and brought the half lemon. Placed it in the stranger’s hand and immediately he asked:

• Here it is, my dear son, but please tell me why do you need this half a lemon? - the man was obviously frightened and immediately ran away but the priest was not sluggish either and ran after him. He wasn’t in a very good condition, he has never run so much and so fast before so he was out of breath by the end of the village, almost fainted. He thought the strange man might appear again next week, and it would be nice if he could keep up with him, so he spent his week working on his cardio. It turned out to be a good idea, because as he thought, the stranger entered the churchyard on Sunday. The priest didn’t even wait for the request, he was good, and brought the half lemon. He received these words from the man:

• Thank you

Some cities plan to fight mosquitoes by releasing swarms of sterile male mosquitoes, which don't bite, and can reduce future generations of mosquitoes. That's a good idea and I hope it works well.

The governor of Kentucky plans to fight crime by having prayer groups go to high-crime neighborhoods to pray there.

Those two ideas give me an idea for fighting crime even better: Release swarms of praying mantises.