Which shoe do you put on first, right or left? (It's always the same.)
Try putting on the other one first and see how really wrong it feels. The balance of the entire cosmos is thrown off for the rest of the day.
Q: What's the definition of a gentleman?
A: One who knows how to play the saxophone but doesn't.
Pam seems to have made some slight improvement over the last 24 hours. She went to a scheduled appt. with another dr. this morning, the first time she's been out of the house in over a week. She told me she was going to stop at the grocery store across the street to pick up a few things while she was out. That's the upside to this otherwise miserable bug she's had; we've saved a ton of money because she hasn't been able to shop (and I don't shop). But her cough is still nasty.
It's Black Monday in the NFL and by noon the ground was littered with fired head coaches and GM's. Let the musical chairs begin!
Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt got the axe, as did their GM. The latter surely needed to go, but I wish they'd have given Whisenhunt a fair chance at things. He tried four - count 'em, four - different QB's this season and they all stank the place up. The GM creates the roster. You can hardly blame the coach for losing games with loser players.
Q: What's the difference between a viola player and a terrorist?
A: Terrorists have sympathizers.
Years and years and years ago I preached a Sunday or two at a church in Muskegon, MI that, at the time, broadcast the sermon portion of the worship service on live radio. The logistics were tricky but because they did it every week they pulled it off without much disruption at all. The individuals running the service knew that at exactly x:xx:xx their service would go live, so they laid things out such that the last congregational hymn would be in its last few bars at that point. Then the pastor would get up and begin his sermon, or in my case, one of the men would get up and introduce the guest preacher for the morning. I had three colored lights on the pulpit to warn me as my allotted time wound down, and when the red light came on I was off. Done or not, Mr. Announcer Guy would be making his closing comments.
Which is worse - ending early when the green light was still lit, leaving Mr. Announcer Guy the job of filling in the rest of the green light and all of the yellow light? Or going over and forcing him to step on my sermon?
I don't remember how I did at hitting my timing mark but I do remember being so distracted by anxiety over those three lights that I preached with all the ease and fluidity of a 2x4. Major stress. And I had been told before the service that the broadcast was listened to by a pretty significant radio audience throughout the city. That austere and imposing sanctuary could have been empty; all I could think about was people sitting at their kitchen tables, coffee cup in hand, waiting for me to screw up the timing.
One of my Monday morning tasks is to post my sermon from the day before to our church's web site. I never do it Sunday evening because it requires editing the front and back ends and adding the announcer tag, and that requires listening to at least a portion of my preaching, and that's not something I can do in the complete funk I always feel for 12-24 hours after preaching.
This morning, as I do almost every Monday morning, I thought about the disconnect I feel as I hit the "record" button on the iPad when I get up to preach, and what I listen to on Monday when I do that editing. Because Pathway is a relatively small church where we know each other I will sometimes refer to individuals as I preach. Yesterday it was a mention of Kevin, who is 40, the same age as Moses when he fled Egypt. And I preach in a very conversational style, nothing like the more oratorical style preferred by some preachers and some churches. The latter works much better for later listening that my much more personalized sermon-as-conversation efforts. So sometimes I wonder if I should preach in a more classic manner that would be more effective for online listeners.
Then I get up, look at those people, and can't help myself. I talk. I say things like "put your big boy pants on" or make reference to Matt's sizable shoe collection and totally abandon any thought I had about "preaching."
Oh well.
Q: What do a bagpipe player and a blind javelin thrower have in common?
A: Neither has to be very good to get people's attention.
4 comments:
While your options didn't indicate how early the preacher might quit BEFORE the yellow light comes on nor how long the yellow light stays lit, the first option (finishing early) seems better than the latter option (not finishing) because an experienced announcer should have "fill" available for those rare occassions when it is needed(e.g., the announcer can speak a little slower than usual, provide the church address, service hours, contact info., special programs, etc.)
My grandma used to listen to Berean's sermon on the radio all the time.
The show thing really got me thinking. I'm a very routine guy and I take my shoes off the same way every day, put them in the same place and then put them on based on the order. Is it really the order or is it something else? Hmmmm, going to have to do some tests.
BTW - went and saw Jack Reacher. Sally had some free passes and I really didn't want to see Les Mis with her. Being a Reacher fan, I went in with low expectations. Was pleasantly surprised. Tom Cruise is believable at 5'10".
Happy New Year.
PS: The Lions still have their coach. Not sure I agree, but not sure a change at the top is what we need. I'm back to going into the post season with draft thoughts - at lease the Seahawks are still in it.
I don't put my shoes on in the same order each time. Whichever I grab first in the closet gets put on first. My only shoe routine is when I try on new shoes in the store - I always try on the right shoe first because my right foot is larger than my left (typical ofost people). No, I don't feel weird or out-of-sorts based on which shoe is put on first. . CYB
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