[Magdalen] Epiphany

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

When I was teaching an English class in prison (preparing the students to
be ministers within the walls) I was explaining about diagramming sentences
as a way of showing how the sentence has a structure, and different parts
of speech contribute to one another.

We did a couple of basic sentences, then I said, "It works with more
complex sentences too. Give me an example."
Someone suggested a passage from an Epistle.  I talked through the sentence
as we worked it out.  I had various clauses on the board, and suddenly
everyone got very quiet.

In the midst of all the clauses, right in the center:

                                   Jesus

You just can't plan that sort of thing.  If I had tried to make it happen,
it wouldn't have worked.  But She does that all the time, eh?

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better
for people coming behind you, and you don’t do it, you're wasting your time
on this Earth.”  -- *Roberto Clemente

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:49 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yeah, it does seem like a lot. I try to go about 15, though. It seems to
> make a big difference, especially with a reading like that darned Ephesians
> one from last Sunday, which has such long sentences with many subordinate
> clauses. (When I was preparing for it I thought about diagramming one or
> two of them, but it gave me a headache.)
>
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:35 PM, Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 12:42 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > I was taught that you should pause for at least 20-30 seconds after
> > > finishing the reading before saying "The word of the Lord", in order to
> > > give the words a chance to sink in at least a little. A lot of readers
> > > don't do that.
> >
> > That's a lot of seconds!
> >
> > In our Benedictine community, during the Offices, no conclusion is
> > said. The reader simply finishes, pauses, and leaves the lectern. I
> > like that.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Scott R. Knitter
> > Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA
> >
>