a non-story

So this is a total non-story in that, well, it didn’t actually happen. I recognize the lameness of this. But the way it played out in my head—the way it would have happened made me laugh. And at least one person is going to suffer through it with me.

So I was in church last Sunday, listening to the sermon translation in my headphones. Translation in church makes for an interesting phenomenon in that there’s really two similar but not identical services going on at the same time. So there’s two groups of people mingled together in the congregation, each responding to different words, different sets of meanings, and different timings of delivery. The typical example is when we Americans laugh at a joke in the movies and our Czech co-watchers, reading the subtitles, laugh three seconds later (or not at all).

The pastor referenced a verse in some epistle, and the translator reported: “Where, O death, is your victory, where, O death is your—I’m sorry, I don’t know the word.”

Keep in mind that this is a non-story and what follows did not actually happen, but at this point, I, ever the helpful teacher, said, in a loud, helpful voice: “STING.”

Everyone was confused. The pastor, momentarily thrown off, took five seconds to check his notes and continue. My fellow Czech brothers and sisters were startled at this strange utterance in tongues. Perhaps the more charismatically inclined waited for an interpretation. And after first nodding in agreement, my fellow headphone-wearers, who had surely filled in the missing word to themselves, proceeded to chuckle and make a note to themselves to go rib Agee after the service. And the translator, pausing his interpretation briefly in line with the short interruption in the pastor’s sermon, did nothing—as he never heard my helpful suggestion behind the glass where he does his good work.

Joel