The placid tranquility of pastoral New Zealand was pierced by my preaching, teaching, and I suppose, occasional screeching.
The next day a woman who attended our workshop came by our host house. She is renowned for being rather candid with no shortage of observations and opinions. Putting it bluntly; she’s blunt. Unsolicited, she offered her comments of my previous night’s proclamatory efforts. Listen in.
“Last night when you were telling jokes and funny stories, everybody was looking up and smiling. When you started to preach the Word and get down to business, all their heads were dropped and they started looking at the floor.”
(Editorial Note: One must assume all heads and eyes were down, except hers! Apparently, she was busy looking at everyone else to see where they were looking.)
I replied, “I guess there was a mouse loose running on the floor under their feet.”
From now on, when the Word starts to hit home,
the insolent wise crack,
“... the mouse is running on the floor...”.