{"id":832,"date":"2011-01-10T20:06:36","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T19:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elementally.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/?p=832"},"modified":"2011-01-10T20:06:36","modified_gmt":"2011-01-10T19:06:36","slug":"reading-at-a-funeral-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/reading-at-a-funeral-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading at a funeral &#8211; 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A friend of mine died recently, in the morning. \u00c2\u00a0We knew it was coming &#8211; we&#8217;ve known for nine months but it&#8217;s still a shock. As my wife and I introduced him and his wife 25 years ago in a theatre company we were running and I read at their wedding, I&#8217;m going to read at his funeral. It&#8217;s not the easiest reading in the world&#8230; \u00c2\u00a0<em>1 Corinthians 15. 42-57.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So how am I going to do it? \u00c2\u00a0Hopefully with all the dignity that he showed in facing his death.<\/p>\n<p>Why am I writing this? \u00c2\u00a0Perhaps because I need to say something to let the grief out a little bit at a time &#8211; to be almost finished in my grieving before the funeral. \u00c2\u00a0That&#8217;s how I&#8217;m going to be able to finish the reading&#8230; like any professional, I need to stay in charge of my emotions when I perform. \u00c2\u00a0And it <strong>is<\/strong> a performance: I was asked to read in no small part because my friend knew I&#8217;d do it professionally. \u00c2\u00a0His family wouldn&#8217;t make it from one end of the reading to the other but he&#8217;s trusting me to work my craft.<\/p>\n<p>What else will I do? Practice&#8230; practice&#8230;. and more practice. \u00c2\u00a0By the time I go stand up in the church, I will not stumble, I will not falter, cry or stammer. \u00c2\u00a0I will be what my friend wants me to be &#8211; my professionalism is my compliment to him, not a cop-out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A friend of mine died recently, in the morning. \u00c2\u00a0We knew it was coming &#8211; we&#8217;ve known for nine months but it&#8217;s still a shock. As my wife and I introduced him and his wife [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-blog-related","category-reviews-case-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}