Two Priests Are Driving Down the Highway

Two priests are driving down the highway. This is the beginning of a joke I told at my grandfather's funeral. Happy holidays everyone. When I was in the sixth grade, I found a book of dirty jokes. I was at a pool party and I started telling all the other boys the jokes I had memorized from the book. The kids were rolling with laughter. I was holding court. Everyone was having a great time. The trouble started when a few of the younger brothers came over to see what all the ruckus was about. They heard some of the jokes and told their mothers I was saying dirty words. Some of the parents were upset, especially one mom in particular.

She told me what I was doing was wrong and she called my parents. I had a chat with my mother and my father and showed them the book. To my parents credit, they weren't judgmental. The jokes were about sex. None of the jokes were about race or mean to any groups of people. And my parents understood that in middle school, kids get curious about sex and the humor surrounding it. Still, my friend's mother was really upset. My parents and I eventually settled on the idea that there are places and spaces where it's okay to tell a joke and places and spaces where it's not. And this person's house was not one of those places.

I was pretty embarrassed about the incident because the other kids' mother made me feel like I had done something shameful and implied that my curiosity was somehow a deep character flaw. A few days later, my grandfather asks me about the incident. I'm embarrassed, so I look down at the floor and I say, I don't want to talk about it. But then he says, tell me one of the jokes. I told him one of the jokes and he laughed really hard. So I told him a few more. He kept laughing. I understood that with him, I didn't need to be embarrassed about this. This led to a secret tradition between the two of us that each year on Christmas, I would tell him a new joke.

The tradition held for 30 years. No one else knew about it. When he passed away earlier this year at 98 years young and I was asked to speak at his funeral, I ran through draft after draft of what I wanted to say. I kept coming back to our tradition and the last joke I ever told him. But I couldn't possibly tell the joke at his funeral. This was not the space where you tell a joke like this. What would other people say? What would they think about me? About him? Would they react like that mother had when I was 13? I tried to compromise. I substituted a different joke, one from the past that wasn't offensive.

Yet every time I rehearsed it, the whole thing felt fake. And one lesson I learned from both of my grandfathers from a very young age is the importance of being authentic. Even if you're afraid, tell the truth. Even if it's hard, tell the truth. It'll be better in the long run. So I wrote my speech and I included the joke that starts out two priests are driving down the highway. Now for what it's worth, we rarely ever told priest jokes. This tradition was never about picking on any group of people. We just wanted to make each other laugh. So I arrived at the funeral ready to tell the joke. I had made peace with my decision.

That's when my jaw nearly hit the floor. Like the opening to a new joke in walks and none, wearing a full habit. My grandfather's niece. The last thing I wanted to do was to upset this poor woman who was grieving just like I was. Then I smiled because it hit me that if my grandfather were there, he would be delighted by the irony of this situation. He would have been laughing. The speech wasn't for everyone else. It really only mattered what my grandfather would think. Would he want me to tell the joke? Of course he would. So I started into my speech and I got to the part about the dirty joke book and the mom shaming me and my grandfather making me feel better about it.

Our secret holiday tradition. And then I arrived at the last joke. I ever told him here it is two priests are driving down the highway when they get pulled over by a police officer. The officer approaches the priest's vehicle and says to the driver, sorry to pull you over father, but we're looking for a couple of child molesters. The two priests look at each other and share a few quiet words. Then the driver turns back to the police officer and says, all right officer, we'll do it. It took a moment for the punchline to land as everyone thought about it. And then the room erupted in laughter and applause.

Even the none reluctantly laughed. She and I hugged afterwards and there were absolutely no hard feelings. When I think back on that moment, I am reminded of all the risks we often don't take. Little things changing something about yourself, breaking a bad habit, trying something new, expressing your feelings to someone, losing weight, working out, drinking less, take a trip to a strange place you've always dreamed of visiting whatever it might be. Life is filled with small chances we want to take, but don't for fear of how other people might react. And those changes probably will bother someone.

You have to know that going in in the war of art, an amazing book by Steven Pressfield. He calls this resistance. When you take a risk, when you try to do something different or unexpected, the universe laughs at you. It will throw an obstacle in your way just to see what you're made of. And the bigger the thing is that you try to do, the bigger the obstacle that it will throw at you. Start a business, write a book, change careers, you will face resistance. And this is true of the big things and the small things. But my feeling is, if your intentions are good, take the chance, because if you can push through that obstacle or several obstacles, if you can overcome the initial pain point, the dip, good things will happen.

Forces will align to help you make that positive change happen. And know that you've got at least one person that is rooting for you. Like my grandfather did to me, I'm here to say to you, you have the answers inside of you, trust your instincts, and take a chance. It's a near certainty that someone or something will exert subtle resistance towards your idea or criticize you or ignore you or try to subvert your motivation. That's okay. What you're doing isn't for them. Focus on who you're doing it for. That might be yourself, or it might be the people whose lives will be improved as a result of the change you want to make.

And even if it doesn't work out the way that you had hoped, succeeding or failing isn't the point. The point is to learn and grow from the experience. It's worth taking the risk, because even in failure, you'll respect yourself more for having tried. So, gramps, wherever you are, I hope you're laughing and I hope you enjoyed this. Happy holidays, everyone. Please do something kind for someone else this season. For no reason at all, take a chance. Be generous with your spirit, connect with others, and of course, be curious. Thank you for listening to the Next Standlea podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate 5 stars, and leave a review.

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