2 Prayers and Offensive Jokes

Firstly the prayers:

Lord as most children and young people go back to school today, I pray that you will bless, protect and guide them in this next step in their lives. I pray that you will keep them safe from harm. Give them friends who love and adults who will listen. Help them to learn and grow and achieve all you have gifted them with. In Jesus name Amen

Lord, I thank you that I have made some headway with my competence folders. I pray that you will help me to focus on having at least 3 completed by September 17th. Remove any blocks and help me to write whatever is needed in order to meet the criteria. Amen

I have been interested to read on the Ship of Fools a debate stemming from the religious intolerence laws. As part of this, they have requested that people send in Christian jokes. They have then put each one up to be graded on it's funniness and it's offensiveness. People are then invited to pass comments on why it is/is not funny and offensive (or not!). I'm not going to post the jokes here (go look them up if you're interested!) but I am interested in the debate. I think jokes can depend on the delivery, who is saying them and in what situation. I didn't find many of them offensive. Infact I think the word offensive doesn't cover it for me. A couple I thought "That's not funny." and I suppose that may be the because I don't find the subject matter comedic. One I felt was racist but it bordered on being funny. It was interesting for me to break it down I think it was that I wasn't expecting the punchline. I also think that if the person telling it had been Indian on a programme like "Goodness Gracious Me", it would have been funny. A lot of people found the Catholic priest=paedophile jokes offensive but I'm unsure. A couple were close to the bone (bordering on sharp intake of breath) but very clever.

Jokes- definately a serious matter...