Second Sabbath

Every second Sabbath of the month, I am responsible for the "program" part for the adults of my church. It's not as big a deal to me now as it was at first, some four years ago. It started with one of the leaders asking me to do a series on spiritual lessons through multiple intelligences. Before I was done, she and her actor husband had moved 1/2 across the country but by then, I guess you could say I had an audience. The nominating committee asked me to continue as one of the program presenters for the next year, and I've been doing it ever since.

The hard part initially was getting used to sharing with people almost twice my age and 3-4 times that of the ones I usually teach. If I was going to do something like this, I wanted it to be as original as possible and yet I really didn't know what I could say that would "speak" to these older folk who most certainly could be teaching me more than a thing or two. Couple that with a limited amount of time to prepare and maybe you can see my dilemma. Eventually I decided to just use what I was working on at school. Happily, the literature I choose to teach always has some kind of spiritual overtones, so my material is essentially endless. Plus I have a whole file drawer of worship talks I've given over the years and could adapt.

Tomorrow, it's second Sabbath again. I was planning to share something about what I'm getting ready to study with the seniors next week: Sir Thomas More's story in Robert Bolt's movie A Man for All Seasons. I love that story of conviction. And I love to teach it. It's a great inspiration to me each time I read/see/teach it so it would be an easy thing to convert into a 10-12 minute talk. But now, I'm thinking I might do something about Veterans Day, as tomorrow is the actual day.

Last weekend when I was at my folks' my mother was telling me about my uncle's involvement on Iwa Jima. I had always known he was there, and that the experience was so horrible that he never talked about it, but now there are two books out giving graphic detail to the story he would not share. James Bradley wanted to interview him for his book Flags of our Fathers, but he still didn't want to talk about his experience. It wasn't until George W. Toyn called that he broke his silence. In this new book, The Quiet Hero, there are pictures of my uncle as he finally reveals his part in this bloody battle now being called"quite possibly the last, great, untold story of World War II."

So, I just may talk about that instead. It doersn't really matter in the long run. The dozen or so "seniors" who are in church at 9:30 always appreciate what I say. Often they find me afterwards and tell me of their connection to the poem or story I've shared, or add a tidbit about an author or composer that I hadn't mentioned, or didn't know. It's been nice having a new group of people to relate to, particularly as I spend most of my time with teenagers!