One of the greatest talents a person can possess is the ability to “read a room.” No matter how talented you are, what data you have to share, or how attractive you are at an event, if you can’t read the room and see what is happening in the moment, you’re just throwing spaghetti at a wall. Even if it’s cooked to perfection and it sticks, it won’t help the Ragu in the jar.
That was Dolly Parton’s greatest gift. You can’t grow up in a one-room log cabin with 13 other people without learning to read a room, and I believe it’s what made her so accessible.
Reading a room takes vulnerability. It takes a willingness to pivot with one foot planted.
It means absorbing a wealth of information in a second and proceeding from there. Someone who arrives with their agenda solidified and doesn’t consider the other people who showed up may be a star, but they can’t be a Dolly.
The most savvy women, who find themselves primarily in a man’s world, know that being genuinely interested in the women in those men’s lives reduces the conflict that might arise from further interaction. When they care about their wives, daughters, and mothers, they are less threatening. I believe the inclusion of other women was evident in her writing.
When I listen to the song “Jolene,” I believe it was much more than a song; it was a strategic move on her part. It put her on equal footing with women everywhere.
What woman out there would turn the head of Dolly Parton’s husband? I mean, really.
That even Dolly had to throw down a gauntlet and stake her claim made her like the rest of us. She told that story until it became part of her lore.
I have heard people say that men wanted her and women wanted to be her. But I think women just wanted to be her friend because actually being Dolly seems like a lot. It was her presence and the God in her that saw the God in us that completed the circle of Dolly’s beloved-ness.
Let’s work on reading the room.
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Retired campus minister, campus ministry coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina, and Collegiate Specialist for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.