Yes, my sabbatical is through, and, no, it's not because I have let a woman in my life who wants to redecorate my home from the cellar to the dome or go to the enthralling fun of overhauling me (see film My Fair Lady). No, actually I am speaking of the last, oh, what's it been, five and a half weeks of failing to write on what was once my daily-turned-semi-weekly-turned-completely-ignored-writing blog?
Well, at lot has happened in this time, and, to tell the truth, the break has been quite good for me. I feel invigorated and refreshed and ready to begin anew relating true stories and false, which is to say tweaked or ameliorated or embellished in some way if needs be.
During this period of rest, I have been busy with a whole lot of things, many of which--I am glad to say--have been productive and enlivening. For example, I have been down to Nevada and Arizona, saw a fabulous production of Phantom of the Opera, attended three major league baseball games, accepted an offer to work as a graduate instructor in the fall, registered for classes, got sick, substituted for elementary and middle school classes, worked on two proofreading jobs, and began my third novel. The odd thing is that, though I accomplished a great many things, everything from my bucket list remains undone.
At first glance, you might be asking yourself how I managed to do all of those things and still say I am invigorated and refreshed. Well, the point of all of that is that I have been busy doing things which are not blog writing. My sabbatical was really from blog writing and nothing else. Now that is ended, and I am ready to return and take care of this.
Of course, I understand that many of my old readers have probably come to the conclusion that I have either quit for good or I am dead, one of the two. Perhaps they think that I have quit for good because I am dead. Well, I am no ghost writer, so don't bother thinking otherwise.
Now, I know you've missed me terribly, and you're probably wanting some funny anecdote from my previous week to lighten up your day, but the truth of the matter is, my week has been a little bit melancholy, considering I've been ill since last Thursday. However, I think I might be able to come up with something.
Ah, yes. I have it.
Two weeks ago from tomorrow, a member of the bishopric came up to me, just before I began teaching my Primary class and asked if I would be willing to speak in church the following Sunday. I agreed, of course, because I had no real reason to refuse and he didn't give me one. He did give me a topic however, which was missionary work. He tried to narrow it down for me by specifiying that I ought to speak about things to do while preparing for a mission, things to do while on a mission, and things to do after the missionary comes home (Note: It wasn't until later that I realized that he hadn't actually narrowed it down at all. Not much anyway.). So, I accepted the invite to speak, and he said I would be the final speaker in the meeting and I would only need to speak for ten minutes.
Ha.
Ha ha.
Ha ha ha.
Not.
The next Sunday, I showed up at church, fashionably late, (five minutes or so) right in the middle of the opening hymn. I glanced up at the front and realized that there was not a soul up there except a young woman (she's about thirteen, so I figured she must be a youth speaker), and two members of the bishopric. Of course, being confused by the lack of bodies on the stand, I grabbed a program to make sure that I was in the right place and that I would still be expected to deliver my ten-minute discourse on missionary work.
"Speaker: Brother Jeff Howard," it said. I was in the right place.
But someone else wasn't. The speaker who was supposed to come before me had not shown up at all. As a result, I was now expected to fill up thirty minutes of time instead of ten.
Ha.
Ha ha.
Ha ha ha.
Not.
So, when it came time for the speakers to, you know, speak, the young woman who came before me stood up and gave her four-minute discourse on something (about 90 seconds lopnger than I expected so I was grateful that she took a little extra time). I can't remember exactly what she spoke on because I was suddenly flipping through my scriptures trying to add a few minutes of material to my own talk.
After her talk, there was a musical number by a group of 12-year-old girls which lasted, oh, not quite long enough, and then, dun dun dun, it was my turn.
I stood up.
I started talking.
Eek. My voice sounded awful.
Most people, if they happen to be sick when they speak in church, will immediately apologize for sounding the way they do. However, I don't believe in apologizing at the beginning of a talk of any sort. It's bad form. So instead of apologizing, I talked about people who apologize at the beginning of their talks.
I said, "You know, lots of people in my situation will apologize for the way their voice sounds and after begging the pardon of the audience will entreat the members of the congregation to bear with them. I won't apologize though. Why should I apologize for this when it isn't even my fault that I sound this way and I couldn't do anything about it if I wanted to?"
I continued, "And as far as bearing with me, I'm not going to ask you to bear with me because, really, you have no choice but to bear with me anyway. I'm going to speak and you're going to listen and that's all any of us is going to do."
By then I was kind of on a roll and out of control. The words were coming to mind and out of my mouth. I went on to say that I was not expecting to speak for this amount of time and I did not intend to because I don't like long-winded speakers and neither does anyone else.
I then mentioned that if I put my mind to it, I probably could come close to filling the time; after all, there are plenty of tried-and-true (cliche) stalling tactics that have been developed at our podiums over the years. For example, I could simply start thanking people who had some sort of job during the meeting. You know, all of the people who are mentioned on the program. I could thank the music people for doing such a great job with the music and bring a great spirit into the meeting. I could thank the bishop for being a wonderful person and doing such a good job presiding at the meeting even though presiding just means sitting down and not doing anything. At that point though, the thanking thing just gets ridiculous, so you have to stop.
After a couple of minutes of being a ham, I began to speak on the actual topic. On missionary work. On conversion. On obedience. On the Atonement. A short while later, an amazing thing happened.
I bore my testimony and looked at the clock. There were only five minutes remaining, and only one person in the audience was asleep (Note: He had actually fallen asleep before I started speaking, so it wasn't my fault exactly. I just do anything sudden enough to wake him up.).
One woman in the audience approached me after church and told me that she appreciated my talk, not only for her sake but also for the fact that her inactive ex-husband (who had not been to church for a long time) had been in the congregation and had heard my talk. She said, "A lot of what you said hit home, and I'm hoping it's a coming-to-Jesus day for him."
Now, there a few things in the world as nice as the feeling of finishing a public discourse, but this is one of them: knowing that what you said, whether or not it was what you planned to say in the first place, affected someone in a positive way. This principle has nothing to do with religion; it's about saying the things that will help others to improve their lives in some way. It doesn't take a lot; in fact, you don't have to speak publicly in order to have an effect. Sometimes, you don't even have to speak at all. Sometimes, it's what you refuse to say (yes, I'm talking about swearing and gossip and slander here, among other things) that helps people most. It can even be an action or an attitude that will show the light to the people who sit alone in the shadowy corner.
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