Isnât it the Venerable Bede who compares life to a sparrow flying from the outer cold and darkness into and through a great hall full of light and warmth and then out again into the aforementioned cold and dark. Actually I think it is the life of pagans he compares to that because obv according to him Christians wonât be subjected to the outer darkness but benefit from some cosy antechamber.
Cheers me up no end. 
The only one which left me feeling - slightly - cheered was the Salvation Armyâs âpromoted to gloryâ
Kind of, though the sparrow image is of life in general and there is no promise of an easy life for anyone. Itâs a memorable and (for me) lovely image.
Weird, isnât it, a faith which explicitly doesnât promise you any material benefit in this world.
I think that this tread should stay on topic for the most part and the moderators get involved if self moderation isnât possible.
Life, death, humour, self-moderation âŚ
I wouldnât mind if the discussion of death were given its own thread and gently excised from this one.
Henry, at 89, went in for his physical. A few days later his doctor called him, and they discussed the test results.
Two days later, the doctor saw Henry at a local nightclub, with a very young, very attractive woman at his side. The doctor waited until the young lady excuses herself, and went over to Henryâs table.
âHenry? What the hell are you doing?â
âJust what you told me doc. I got a hot momma!â
âHenry, I said you had a heart murmurâŚâ
In the old West, a Mexican bandit made a specialty of crossing the Rio Grande from time to time and robbing banks in Texas. The banks offered a reward for his capture, dead or alive, but offered a much larger award for the recovery of the stolen funds. An enterprising Texas Ranger decided to track him down. After a long and difficult search, he traced the bandit to his home town. On a hunch, he checked the townâs cantina, and sure enough, there was the robber. The only other people in the bar were the bartender and a well-dressed, older man at a back table.
The time was right to make a move. The ranger drew his revolver, charged into the cantina, and announced: âYou are under arrest. I get a reward for you, dead or alive. Tell me where the money is, and Iâll let you live. If you donât, Iâll shoot you right here, and save myself the trouble of having to take you back to Texas alive.â But the bandit didnât speak English, and the Ranger didnât speak Spanish. As it turned out, the older man at the back of the bar happened to be a lawyer. He knew the robber, and was bilingual, and quickly offered to translate for the two of them.
The ranger said: âTell him that if he doesnât tell me where the loot is, Iâll shoot him here and now.â Upon hearing what the Ranger had said, and seeing the cold look in his eye, the bandit knew that the Ranger meant it - if he did not give up his loot, he was a dead man. Terrified, the bandit blurted out in Spanish that the loot was buried in an old barn at the outskirts of town.
âWhat did he say?â asked the Ranger.
The lawyer answered, âHe said, âYou donât have the nerve to shoot me, gringo.ââ
15âŹ.
But then you would have to divorce the death jokes from the reaction, and neither would make sense, either that or make the new death thread only for death jokes, and then have someone else come along and complain that there is nowhere to put their reactions to the humerous death jokes.
That would mean we have 3 joke threads, and, as I canât see anything funny in some of the supposed jokes in this one, I would have to campaign for a funny, or not, but not understood joke thread.
My head is beginning to hurt, canât we just allow people to make a joke about a joke and accept that not everyone finds everything funny? 
A joke is a joke , some are more funny than others, but theyâre all jokes.
Mind you, some are dead funnyâŚ
Oh Dr Mark I think Iâve discussed with you before about the dad jokes
Have never liked Ron Muerckâs work, but heâs an Aussie and his Dead Dad sculpture seemed appropriate!
A policeman sees an old woman carrying two large sacks. One of the sacks has a hole and is leaking 20 dollar bills.
The policeman asks the woman, âWhere did an old lady like you get all of that money?â
She replies, âWell, thereâs a golf course behind my house and when golfers needed to go to the bathroom, theyâd stick their penis through a hole in my fence and pee into my yard. It became a problem because it killed the flowers.â
He asks, âSo what did you do about it?â
The old lady says, âI get my hedge clippers and I wait behind the fence. When a golfer sticks his penis through the fence, I grab hold of it and shout âGIVE ME $20 OR IT COMES CLEAN OFF!ââ
âThat seems fair enough,â the policeman says, âso whatâs in the other sack?â
The old lady shakes her head, âThey donât all payâŚâ