Having devoted more than half my life to the action of preaching, you think I'd get used to people not hearing what I intended with my sermons ...I remember one notable day when I carefully crafted what I considered a brilliant sermon. I carefully worked out a theme. Lined up three main points and assembled the sermon. I reread it in the morning before I got ready to lead the worship service. I leaned back somewhat self satisfied with my work.
My theme was crystal clear. My points were eloquent and erudite. I was ready to deliver a barn burner of a sermon ...
After the service concluded I was dumb-founded when not one, not two, but five different people ALL came out thanking me for a wonderful service and noted the theme was tremendous. The only PROBLEM was all of them cited a theme that wasn't the ONE I had laid out so carefully ... they took something totally different from my precisely crafted sermon.
So, it shouldn't surprise me when people read my words here and draw from my postings something totally different from that which I had intended when I wrote it in the first place ... Last night I received an email from a re-discovered old friend who read the ENTIRE canon of posting thus far for 2007 ... their sanity, or obvious lack thereof not with standing ... they commented on a posting from a way back noting obliquely how the post could be regarded by a third person who could be hurt by what they dubbed "a shot".
"Huh?" I exclaimed as I read their email ... and I went back and with a re-reading saw that my comment could indeed be taken as a shot ... so with a few strokes on the key pad I edited the posting slightly, removing a line that didn't need to be there and altered the language slightly so it was less of a "shot" and more of just an observation (with a positive slant) of what was happening in the recalled moment.
It did however get me thinking about how limited this medium truly is. In the few meagre words I offer in postings here there is an enormous distilling down of my thoughts and feelings and musings. With a few dozen key strokes I record what may have taken several hours to think my way through it. I record here only a tiny fraction of what I've thought and felt. I mistakenly assume a meaning for the texts I craft that may or may not be the SAME meaning others draw from it ...
Sometimes I take shots here ... but sometimes the sting of my words is regarded as a shot when that was the last thing I intended ... Those moments I find troubling and distressing.
Because if I'm gonna take a shot - I'm gonna take a shot. I'm not a big fan of collateral damage.
From now on I WILL consider more carefully my words and how they may affect others inadvertently ... I never like hurting someone I care about ...
1 comment:
I think that's why we use so many emoticons in email--it helps convey those nuanses that can be lost in the black and white text. But I still find it to be a wondrous medium. Perhaps that's why I often slave over a piece trying to convey exactly what I mean. Still, as soon as you hit "publish" (or deliver the sermon) it belongs to the audience, whatever their interpretations may be...
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