Wednesday, January 26, 2011

"... This Sermon Brought to You By...."

I interpreted the sermon Sunday at church. It's been a long time since I've done the whole sermon - and many weeks since I've done any of it. But it is a skill that takes practice - partially to weed through the English words to find the concept being expressed, and partially to drown out - or at least ignore - the chatter going on inside my head - so practice, I did.

The baseline chatter is typically stuff like: "Oh! I know that sign, what is it, what is it....?", "What was that verse again?", "I'm sorry, is the pastor still speaking English?", "Yeah, THAT sign? So totally God, I've never learned it!", "Oh! THAT's what that means...."

or perhaps:

"OH! I see why I'm interpreting today, God.... You wanted me RIGHT HERE in front of EVERYONE to teach me this.... thanks so much for that!", "ouch, that hurt." "Yes, Sir, I understood that was for me...", "Yes.... You have my attention...."

But no, not this week. (well, OK, there was some of that.... I was mentally grasping for signs I know - like "man" (c'mon, really?) and "wife".) This week, as I signed "worthy", "important", "faith", "family", and threw a few "dots" out into the virtual map which surrounded my personal space, I thought.... (in a very Sesame Street sort of way):

"Today's sermon is brought to you by the hand shape - F"

1 comment:

Sarah said...

Sometimes... we just get by... :-) That's funny. One time my co-interpreter knocked her own glasses off in the middle of the sermon. Not much else was thought about for the rest of the service. Love it!