Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.17UNLIKELY
Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
0.58LIKELY
Sadness
0.51LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.51LIKELY
Confident
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Tentative
0.57LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.34UNLIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.35UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.09UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
0.45UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
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Ugly, Fisherman, Hospitality, Friendliness, Boarding
THE OLD FISHERMAN \\ \\ Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of \\ Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
We lived downstairs and rented the \\ upstairs rooms to out-patients at the Clinic.
\\ \\ One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door \\ I opened it to see a truly awful looking man.
'Why, he's hardly taller \\ than my eight-year-old,' I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled \\ body.
\\ \\ But the appalling thing was his face, lopsided from swelling, red and \\ raw.
Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, 'Good evening.
I've come \\ to see if you've a room for just one night.
I came for a treatment this \\ morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'till morning.' \\ \\ He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success; \\ no one seemed to have a room.
'I guess it's my face.
I know it looks \\ terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments...' \\ \\ For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: 'I could \\ sleep in this rocking chair on the porch.
My bus leaves early in the \\ morning.'
I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch.
\\ I went inside and finished getting supper.
When we were ready, I asked \\ the old man if he would join us.
'No thank you.
I have plenty'.
And \\ he held up a brown paper bag.
\\ \\ When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him \\ a few minutes.
It didn't take a long time to see that this old man had \\ an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body.
He told me he fished \\ for a living to support his daughter, her five children and her husband, \\ who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.
\\ \\ He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was \\ prefaced with thanks to God for a blessing.
He was grateful that no \\ pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin \\ cancer.
He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.
\\ \\ At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him.
When I \\ got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded, and the little \\ man was out on the porch.
\\ \\ He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as \\ if asking a great favor, he said, 'Could I please come back and stay \\ the next time I have a treatment?
I won't put you out a bit.
I can \\ sleep fine in a chair.'
He paused a moment and then added, 'Your \\ children made me feel at home.
Grownups are bothered by my face, but \\ children don't seem to mind.'
I told him he was welcome to come again.
\\ \\ And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning.
As \\ a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had \\ ever seen.
He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so \\ that they'd be nice and fresh.
I knew his bus left at 4 a.m. and I \\ wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.
\\ \\ In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time \\ that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden.
\\ \\ \\ Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special \\ delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or \\ kale, every leaf carefully washed.
Knowing that he must walk three \\ miles to mail these and knowing how little money he had made the gifts \\ doubly precious.
\\ \\ When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment \\ our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning.
'Did you \\ keep that awful looking man last night?
I turned him away!
You can \\ lose roomers by putting up such people!' \\ \\ \\ Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice.
Oh If only they could have \\ known him, perhaps their illness would have been easier to bear.
I know \\ our family always will be grateful to have known him.
From him we \\ learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good \\ with gratitude to God. \\ \\ Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse.
As she showed me \\ her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden \\ chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms.
But to my great surprise, it was \\ growing in an old dented, rusty bucket.
I thought to myself, 'If this \\ were my plant, I'd put it in t he loveliest container I had!' \\ \\ My friend changed my mind.
'I ran short of pots,' she explained, 'and \\ knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind \\ starting out in this old pail.
It's just for a little while, till I can \\ put it out in the garden.' \\ \\ She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining \\ just such a scene in heaven.
There's an especially beautiful one,' God \\ might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman.
\\ 'He won't mind starting in this small body.' \\ \\ All this happened long ago -- and now, in God's garden, how tall this \\ lovely soul must stand.
\\ \\ The LORD does not look at the things man looks at.
Man looks at the \\ outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.' \\ \\ Friends are very special.
They make you smile and encourage you to \\ succeed.
They lend an ear and they share a word of praise.
Show your \\ friends how much you care.
\\ \\ Pass this on, and brighten someone's day.
\\ \\ Nothing will happen if you do not decide to pass it along.
\\ \\ The only thing that will happen if you do pass it on is that someone \\ might smile (or cry like I did...) ~~ because of you!
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