Swearing Parrot

There is a man with a parrot, and the parrot swears like a sailor. The parrot can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself. Trouble is, the man who owns him is a quiet, polite, conservative type, and the bird's foul mouth is driving him crazy.

One day, it gets to be too much, so the man grabs the parrot by the throat, shakes him really hard, and yells, "Quit it!"

This just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever. Then the man gets mad and says "OK for you," and locks the bird in the kitchen cabinet.

This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches. When the man finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a veteran sailor blush.

At this point, the man is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the first few seconds there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes and uses more vulgar words, then suddenly, it gets very quiet.

At first the man just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt or deeply chilled. After a couple of minutes of silence, he is so worried that he opens the freezer door.

The bird calmly climbs onto the man's outstretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on."

The man is astonished. He can't understand the transformation that has taken place.

Then the parrot says, "By the way, what did the chicken do?"

Discipline

Disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined actions over an extended period. Jim Collins in "Good to Great".

The above statement is applied to business and I found it in the Six Sigma for Dummies. But can it be applied to the church? Not in a business sense but in terms of discipline. We claim to be "disciples" of Jesus Christ; therefore we submit to His discipline.

But the key to the whole statement is "over an extended period." Peter says "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness." "Run the race with perseverance." James tells us "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." All this takes discipline - over an extended period. God Bless!

Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. Winston Churchill

All of these quotes are from Winston Churchill. Please enjoy!

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.

The first quality that is needed is audacity.

Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.