Some of you heard my story about the husband and the wife who had quarreled. It had been a high-pitch quarrel, each digging their heels in to preserve the position they had vehemently taken. Emotions ran high. Both were nursing their hurt feelings in defensive silence. As they were driving to attend a family wedding in a distant city — it was an uneasy and quiet trip, both of them starring straight ahead or out the window as the miles went by in icy silence. The angry tension between them was so thick you could cut it with a knife. But, then the silence was broken. Pointing to a donkey standing in a pasture out beside the road, the husband sarcastically asked, “Relative of yours?”

The wife quickly replied, “By marriage!”

The ass, the braying donkey, is an ugly sight, an object of amused …