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Well, that was a first
Jul. 10th, 2019 08:37 pmIt was my turn to do devotions at work (again, I work in the office of the ELCA Lutheran Bishop for the Minneapolis Area Synod). The text was the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Instead of doing a Bible study or exposition, I read aloud for twenty minutes from chapter 4 of The Wild Swans, the chapter that has that biblical text as an epigraph. It's the scene where Elias and Sean met and Sean rescues him from the streets.
No one threw tomatoes. A few murmured afterward that they liked it.
I've read aloud at conventions and book clubs. Very unnerving to read aloud from my own stuff at my workplace.
I brought chocolate bread pudding. Maybe that kept the tomatoes at bay.
Edited to add: One of my coworkers stopped me in the kitchen the next day to tell me that she really liked it. She was very impressed by both the writing and my reading, she enjoyed it as a different thing to do for devotions, and she thought it was both very appropriate for the text and thought-provoking. And she recognized that it was a brave thing for me to do. It spoke to her deeply since she divorced her first husband for alcoholism and he spent decades on the streets before he died.
The feedback was immensely reassuring. It’s a relief to get confirmation that I didn’t make a total fool of myself.
Instead of doing a Bible study or exposition, I read aloud for twenty minutes from chapter 4 of The Wild Swans, the chapter that has that biblical text as an epigraph. It's the scene where Elias and Sean met and Sean rescues him from the streets.
No one threw tomatoes. A few murmured afterward that they liked it.
I've read aloud at conventions and book clubs. Very unnerving to read aloud from my own stuff at my workplace.
I brought chocolate bread pudding. Maybe that kept the tomatoes at bay.
Edited to add: One of my coworkers stopped me in the kitchen the next day to tell me that she really liked it. She was very impressed by both the writing and my reading, she enjoyed it as a different thing to do for devotions, and she thought it was both very appropriate for the text and thought-provoking. And she recognized that it was a brave thing for me to do. It spoke to her deeply since she divorced her first husband for alcoholism and he spent decades on the streets before he died.
The feedback was immensely reassuring. It’s a relief to get confirmation that I didn’t make a total fool of myself.