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Sunday 23 September 2007

OT 25

First off, I'm not sure I didn't receive the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily. I spent a big chunk of my four Masses peeved at other people.
I've got to get back in touch with a skill I've always had in spades, that seems to have flown the coop...
Himself likes to tell a story of a TD who was approached in the wings by an hysterical, drooling, wild-eyed actor, about to make his first entrance in his first show in "the Bigs," who, having failed to check his props ahead of time, discovered to his horror that he did not have the only object that gave meaning to his entrance.
"M----! I can't find the noose!!?#$?!??!?!!~!?^?&?*!#!"
A not unkind, but also no particularly interested, "Bummer, man...." before turning back to what ever he was doing.
We laugh about the story a lot (I believe both parties to it do, as well.)
About to work with a notoriously nasty diva, Himself an I worked out a technique. No matter how ugly, how urgent, how demanding, how insulting, how angry she got, any unreasonable remark from her would receive from him, in reply, a wide-eyed, "Oh.... really ?"
It works wonderfully, and I used to be able to muster that attitude when called upon. (I've even used it a few time in parish work.)

So why am I forgetting to take it now?
I have allowed the unreasonable and occasionally contradictory demands of TPTB, and my desire to meet them, to cause me to be less than charitable to TunPfulTB.
I need to stop.
I just need to stop.
I not only can't read minds, but even when given my marching orders, I can't always carry them out, particularly when it involves bringing other people along.

Boy, did Fr Anonymous at St John Cantius nail it.... I need to go to confession more often.
It is not worth being abrupt with people who are doing the best they can (even if I have asked or told them the same thing 4 times, in print, on dry-erase board, and in answer to their questions when they haven't bothered to read their programs, the music or the signs...,) just to get some minor detail of some para-liturgy correct, especially when I don't even agree with the aims of the person who decreed that thus-and-such was to be done.

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