Sunday was a big “step out of the comfort zone” day for me. Our church was doing a Sunday focusing on women and their role in the church, so they had women doing all the major parts of the service. But we have two simultaneous services and one female pastor, so our pastor asked me to do the “sermon” part for the traditional service (since I had to sing in the choir). It wasn’t a regular sermon. What they were doing was a dramatic monologue done from the perspective of a woman in a Bible story, and they looked to me, as a writer, to write and present something.

I used to do a lot of drama stuff. In high school, I was in drama club. I was in plays and competed in things like prose interpretation and dramatic monologues. I took drama classes as most of my electives in college, and they were my favorite classes. I took some acting classes and was in a show when I was right out of college, so this was within my skill set. But doing a play is different from essentially presenting the sermon in church on a Sunday morning, especially when it was an unusual kind of sermon. There’s some resistance to “drama” in church. That made this a little scarier than reading scripture (which I’ve done) or even singing a solo.

I spent most of Saturday rehearsing it, trying to memorize it. Then it turned out on Sunday morning that there was a handy spot to hide my notes for reference, which relaxed me, though I ended up not even looking at them. I think it went pretty well, but I went into out-of-body experience mode and don’t really remember it. I just started talking and it all came out, and next thing I knew it was over and I had to run back to the choir to sing.

It’ll be nice to let the pastor talk next Sunday, I think.

And now back to writing my usual stuff.