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Overcoming nerves with great love
Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk.
The sound of my heels hitting the stone floor rattled about the old
church while I desperately tried to remember what my mother had told me
about how not to sound like an elephant while walking. I got to the ambo,
where I was to proclaim as a guest lector, and realized that the oddball
layout of the church felt even weirder than I had imagined. I promptly
blew the first line of the reading. My husband and the kind lady who had
invited me to her parish both assured me that they hadn’t heard anything
wrong. But I did. Later, as I went over things in my head, it occurred
to me there’s a column in this because this did not happen years ago. This
wasn’t the result of beginner’s nerves. It happened only a few weeks ago,
and I’ve been lectoring for a good twenty-something years. You’d think
I’d be past being nervous when I proclaim. I’m not. I do not want to be
past being nervous.
If proclaiming is a gut-wrenching battle of will over fear for you,
this might sound a little crazy. But a few nerves get that adrenaline going
and keep you sharp and focused. When the pressure is on to do your best,
you’re more likely to work at it, and then your best comes out. In fact,
no nerves can hurt your proclamation just as much as too many nerves. That’s
when you’re most likely to slack off and get comfortable and “phone it
in.” “Phoning it in” is an expression used by some actors to describe a
performance given by someone who has all the lines down, all the movements
and expressions down, but is only going through the motions instead of
giving it his or her all. Obviously, we are not acting here; this is not
performance. But the principle is the same. When we’re too comfortable
and only go through the motions, our proclamation just lays there, limp
and blah.
Although some nervousness can be a good thing, too much can be a significant
problem. Even if the nervous lector can get past the paralysis, what may
remain is mumbling or reading way too fast. The most immediate answer to
dealing with nerves is to practice, practice, practice. If you’re new,
take the time to practice getting up and down from the ambo and get the
feel of looking over the book at the assembly (something I did not get
a chance to do at the old church I was visiting). If you’re wearing new
shoes, do the same thing. Practice your reading up one side and down the
other. The more you read it out loud, the more that reading becomes a part
of your body memory and you won’t have to think about it as much during
the actual proclamation.
The second answer to nerves hit me during a recent prayer time. I’ve
been going through the book Let Nothing Trouble You, meditations
from the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, compiled by Heidi S. Hess. The
quotation that leapt out at me is, “The Lord doesn’t look so much at the
greatness of our works as at the love with which they are done.” It reminded
me of the saying, “Do little things with great love,” which has been attributed
to Mother Teresa of Calcutta but originated with St. Therese of Lisieux
and her Little Way. This advice sounds very nice, but what the heck does
it mean? It means don’t phone it in. It means give it your all and be present
to whatever it is you’re doing in that moment, whether it’s folding laundry
or proclaiming the word of God to our parish assembly.
The reason that first line wasn’t right that Sunday I was visiting was
that I wasn’t giving it my all — I was worrying about me and how I appeared
to that assembly. Suddenly realizing that my shoes sounded as loud as a
cannon got me worrying about me. When I stay focused on the word and not
on whether I look pretty enough or whether people are going to like me
or whether my shoes are too noisy, then I am proclaiming with great love.
So the best cure for too much nervousness is actually what we need to
be doing in the first place: focusing on the word and proclaiming with
all we’ve got. ML
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