The Luxury of a Free Saturday

And it's not the extra free hour on Sunday that makes a week out of the pulpit so refreshing. It's the extra 14 hours+ I get back on Saturday, not to mention the time during the rest of the week when I don't have to think about what I'm going to say on Sunday morning. Try as I might to change the habit over the decades, I have always been a Saturday sermon writer...and no matter how early in the week I begin the task, it seems as though I am almost always still working on my manuscript right up until the last minute anyway. I suppose part of the reason for this is that preaching in my mind is very similar to journalism, and to the daily work of journaling I try to practice as an informal spiritual discipline. Almost all my sermons seem to have their start in my diary anyway. And you certainly wouldn't expect people to sit patiently and listen to someone read to them from a month-old newspaper.

Of course, the other metaphor for preaching is "feeding the flock." And that understanding also lends itself quite conveniently to the understanding of fresh ingredients freshly prepared. But lately I've been working back in the other direction as well. Because good writing is generally the product of diligent re-writing, my writing teachers always told me. The ingredients may be fresh, but the recipe can always be tested and tweaked through practice and experimentation until it is "just right." And what I've realized is that I have a unique opportunity right now to return to some of my favorite material, and give it the kind of polish and scrutiny that the hectic press of preaching every week AND doing all the other things that Parish Ministers are called to do has always prevented me from doing in the past.



Meanwhile, last night I dreamed again of Parker. Not the frail, uncomfortable failing Parker of her final days, but Frisky Parker who chased balls tirelessly and ran flat out with the big dogs across the mud flats at Juniper Beach -- my little Boston Terrorist, who feared nothing, and refused to back down to any other dog no matter how intimidated she should have been. In fact, she often frightened me with her stubborn courage. But the thing I'll miss most about Parker is that she made friends easily, and that almost everyone who met her seemed to love her almost immediately. Or to put it another way, Parker was a babe magnet, who could elicit all sorts of oohs and ahhhs from attractive, desirable strangers who would never give ME a second glance.