Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon<\/p>\n
Sin and Salvation has ended for me.\u00a0 It will leave without another tour on my part, though I may go check it out once more on my own.\u00a0 One of the most pleasurable tour experiences I’ve had in what is now 8 + years of volunteering at the MIA, this\u00a0 show brought together a number of interests of mine, including the PRB.<\/p>\n
With most things I do I hold myself to a very high level of expectation, a curse left over from days as a good student.\u00a0 Maybe I should say, as they do often in the Hebrew Scriptures, a curse and blessing.\u00a0 The blessing usually comes in the preparation which always gets my full attention.\u00a0 I love research.\u00a0 The curse begins to strike soon after, that is, when any work has to go beyond my study and into the world.<\/p>\n
First, there is the anxiety.\u00a0 Have I prepared well?\u00a0 Have I prepared enough?\u00a0 Have I focused on the right material?\u00a0 If these questions sound familiar from finals week, you know what I’m talkin’ about.\u00a0 Then, there is the time just before and sometimes in the very beginning of a presentation or tour when the same questions come flooding back, always in a place where there is no more hope of doing more.<\/p>\n
At some point, usually after an introductory moment, the anxiety subsides and the presentation takes over on its own.\u00a0 Sometimes, a critical look or remark can throw me even then.\u00a0 That’s the worst, to be thrown off after having found my stride.<\/p>\n
Sometimes then, at the very end,\u00a0 when the preparation and the presentation is over, if people make a substantive show of appreciation, the blessing returns.\u00a0 At this time it is a great boost, a confirmation of what I always wish for, the coming together of content and audience for an aha moment, or a huh!\u00a0 I hadn’t thought of that.<\/p>\n
Today, on this last tour of the Sin and Salvation show, I experienced a double blessing:\u00a0 a show of support with good questions, interaction, clapping, people shaking my hand, others staying behind to discuss their insights, even a woman who went on the very same tour a week ago and returned with a friend to do it all over again.\u00a0 This was a double blessing because as a special exhibition I had given my tour over and over.\u00a0 Most of the time it was well received, but this affirmation at the end gave\u00a0 all the research and other tours a positive glow.<\/p>\n
Sin and Salvation can have that effect, I guess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon Sin and Salvation has ended for me.\u00a0 It will leave without another tour on my part, though I may go check it out once more on my own.\u00a0 One of the most pleasurable tour experiences I’ve had in what is now 8 + years of volunteering at the MIA, this\u00a0 show … Continue reading The End of Sin and Salvation<\/span>