Papaya and Storytelling

I promised not to overkill on the "fruit by week" images... so here you go: Month #5. (For those that need help with gestational math, that leaves 4 more to go.) From what I have heard and felt, it has been a fun start. Our little girl has been kicking her momma quite ferociously and I can just imagine those little one+ inch feet one day being in her mouth, sinking in the sand, kicking her first soccer ball...or kicking the teeth out of the boy who thinks he can get too fresh.

My last four classes have begun and I am eager to share them with you:

• Narrative preaching,
• Jewish world in the New Testament,
• Theology of the Pentateuch,
• Exegesis of Hebrew Poetry

I'm most excited about becoming a better narrative preacher, that is, a storyteller of the biblical stories. For those who know me well, you know that I can sometimes tell a story well and then sometimes...not so much. My brain is wired in this odd way that comes out when I write or speak. Some things are blurted out that shouldn't be - words that don't exist, things that happened differently in the replay of my memory, or forgetting crucial details of the story. ("Did you see Dark Knight? There was this scene on a building where he was pulled out by a plane!" = "WHAT?!!") The victims of this predicament have been jokes, anecdotes...and now sermons.

Part of the problem is that my brain is simply attracted to the wrong details. I can't tell you how many times I have had a full conversation with someone, then tried recounting it to Holly and she says, "so wait, you didn't ask if she got the job?" or "what did they decide to name him?" This is where yours truly establishes a goofy posture and a blank stare begins as if the moment might pass without causing either party embarrassment. (Never such luck.) This, sadly, no longer surprises Holly...only to make my new/old friends suffer until my wife notices the trainwreck coming and then reaches for her fork to poke into my thigh. So far this has been moderately helpful, but I'm hoping that a class in "narrative preaching" will cause some of these tendencies to reverse, or at least slow to a general awareness.

This of course reminds me of my favorite comedian Brian Regan, who you might find on Comedy Central with the following bit that embodies this moment precisely. As such I leave you in his two-dimensional company.