I turned down two invitations tonight in order to work on Sunday's sermon, so that's what I'm going back to in a minute, but first I'm going to clear the heap of New York Times clippings off the couch. Some of the bits I want to remember:

Donna Paul's profile of singer-songwriter Livingston Taylor and his retreat on Martha's Vineyard. What especially caught my interest: his life as a not-as-well-known-as-his-brother-but-still-successful musician: he teaches at Berklee, plays to clubs that hold 500-600, and says nice things about Nashville: "I did my last [recording] there, and had so much darn fun that I wanted to do the next one there, too. It is the final resting place for the old-style pop music sensibilities that define my generation of musicians."

Alan Schwarz's profile of an almost-100-year-old Red Sox fan:

Only recently did he move into an assisted-living facility with his wife of 61 years, Harriet, who during the living-room interview stopped by and exclaimed, "Oh, the Red Sox! That's the best vitamin for him!"

Greg Bishop's profile of Jets linebacker -- and Detroit native -- Bart Scott:

"I'm stronger than any man you'll ever run into because of women," Scott said. "My mom, my aunties, my grandma, my sisters. By the time I started playing football, football was easy."

Patrick Healy's article about reactions to Broadway revival of Joe Turner's Come and Gone (keywords to self: white director, black playwright, institutional racism, lack of opportunities, personal interest, personal acquaintance, artistic vision, direct experience, listening and collaboration, problematic precedents, wanting to work, taking three days to think things through)

Gina Kolata's article on, among other things, unrealistic expectations regarding both the odds of escaping cancer and curing it:

"People too often come to us expecting that the newest drugs can cure widespread metastatic cancer," Dr. [Leonard] Saltz said. "They are often shocked to find that the latest technology is not a cure."

One reason for the misunderstanding, he said, is the words that cancer researchers and drug companies often use. "Sometimes by accident, sometimes deliberately, sometimes with the best intentions, sometimes not, we may paint a picture that is overly rosy," he said.

The end of the article touches upon how some cancer patients don't want anything to do with those in later, closer-to-death stages of the disease.

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Yesterday morning, I worked at one of the registration counters for the Country Music Marathon, and afterwards I prowled around the Expo for a bit, where I ran into a friend who's walking the half-marathon for Gilda's Club and picked up two sports bras and some samples of emuprofen, a topical pain reliever. They've already been worth their weight in entertainment: I handed a packet to the BYM later in the evening, who joked, "So is this made from real emus?" -- only to find out, yes, it actually is. (I happen to have met a Berea jewelry artist who gave an extended testimonial to emu oil during one of my browses through her beads, so I wasn't surprised. But BYM's "Wait a minute--!" was priceless.)

Then yesterday evening, we attended a fundraiser for Street Works, a Nashville agency working to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in high-risk communities and help those already infected/affected. The keynote speaker was Rev. Kenneth S. Robinson, currently pastor of St. Andrew AME Church and previously the first African American Commissioner of Health for the State of Tennessee. His speech was very much a sermon, complete with "Turn to your neighbors," "Can I get a witness?" and other elements of his preaching tradition. He demanded of his audience three questions -- which I have already forgotten (something along the lines of "Who did you want to become, who are you now, and why are you here?", with the main thrust being that no one ever ends up exactly where they expected or as they planned), but which could be summed up as "There but for the grace of God go any of us, so give as much as you can to help those trapped by their circumstances."

I have no argument with the gist of his message, but I've been musing on and off since the dinner about the nature of callings, having written a poem on the theme two nights ago, being both delighted and displeased at how certain pieces insist on jumping the queue in my head and not leaving me in peace until I give in and write them (hence yesterday's lament, "Worse Than Booze"), and feeling extremely conflicted about my, well, conflicting reactions to Rev. Robinson's preaching style. On the one hand, one of the quickest ways to alienate me is to put me in a situation that requires audience participation, no matter how noble or benign. On the other hand, I realize this is a personal hangup, and that what I viscerally react to as an encroachment on my boundaries, many others find engaging and vital. On the back left paw, as an instructional writer and trainer, I love devising presentations and exercises that manipulate steer students into interacting with the material -- i.e., that they can't sleepwalk through. On the back right paw, my own resistance to sharing myself except on my own terms and in my own time means my throat practically closes up whenever I consider employing "call and response" tactics or other putting-people-on-the-spot or keeping-them-awake strategies in my own homilies. On the front left horn, it does also depend on the audience: a room of < 15 people has a different dynamic than a full ballroom or sanctuary. On the front right horn, I've been a part of congregations where raising one's hand to testify "amen" was a natural and welcome thing to do, and there were moments during Rev. Robinson's speech where the urge was very much with me, but it was not a context where I could do that and be sure that it would be understood by those around me as an "amen" rather than "I have a question."

In a nutshell, I'm a bit unsettled about how unsettled I am about both the speech and the whole issue of callings and purpose -- but it's a luxury being able to dwell on it at length, and dwelling-upons do not a deliverable sermon produce. So, back to that window I go.