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Raw carrots can be good for you!

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• I believe that theater, for a community, whether large or small, can lead, can set trends, and can influence great artistic achievement.
• I believe that our Creator wants to release extraordinary creativity and innovation, at levels never seen before, into those people He has placed in the arts.
• I believe that the art of theater can and should be a joyful and life enriching experience for those that produce it, the artists that make it, and all that see it. I believe God is saying “come up higher.”
• I believe that theatre artists of faith want to be a part of redemptive stories, and stories with spiritual dimension, done with such excellence and vibrance, that even the current mainstream model of professional theatre is “wowed”.
• I believe there is still room to do plays new and old, ones we have seen over and over, and ones we have yet to discover, with more excellence and depth than they have ever been done before.
• I want to be a part of what God is doing in the earth in this amazing hour of history.
• I want to innovate and create excellent and divinely inspired theater.
• I want to “go up higher”.
• I want to love theatre artists and theatre producers, owners and directors because God loves them and they are His people. They are also my people. My Assignment.
• I want to have ears that “hear” God’s voice, walk in His wisdom and speak His words.

I got a wonderful book from a dear friend for my birthday last week and I want to quote the author, Cindy Trimm, in the first chapter of her book Commanding Your Morning: Unleash the Power of God in Your Life.

     “One of the fastest-growing art forms today is called the “spoken word”. Throngs of people gather in clubs, schools, cafes, church auditoriums, stadiums, and theaters just to hear the poetic, pulsating rhyme spoken by artists who by virtue of their creativity and talent move their audiences to emotional highs and lows merely by what comes out of their mouths. Like painters creating moving masterpieces in vibrant colors, these artists “paint” on the canvas of the human soul”.

I consider that a great and glorious responsibility. We can impact our art form and we must because our art form has great capacity to impact our world.

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An awesome performance must be heard to count.

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During final rehearsals for “A Christmas Carol” (based on the novella by Charles Dickens), a speech of Jacob Marley’s was highlighted to me. In case you have not seen the show or need a refresher, Jacob Marley was Ebenezer Scrooge’s former partner and died seven years ago on Christmas Eve. He comes (as a ghost) to visit Ebenezer in the night on this particular Christmas Eve as the story unfolds.

Marley is speaking of his regrets in life in the hope of convincing Scrooge to look again at his chosen path. Scrooge remarks to Marley, “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” to which Marley responds:

“Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Marley, now aware of the true purpose of his life, had discovered that his true and authentic self was more than the one his life displayed. He had realized that he was created to be charitable, merciful, and generous. In life, he was positioned for it, he was resourced for it, yet in the actual living, he missed it. He desperately tried to reach his friend and partner with this realized truth.

In taking a closer look at Ebenezer Scrooge himself, we can see in the story that he started out better, was on a good path, but something happened. His true and intended identity was twisted and/or somehow diverted, as he began to believe things about himself that were not true. His name, Ebenezer, is a Hebrew name that means “stone of help”. Yet, he was not living out his true identity.

Of course, in the end, Scrooge, had his eyes “opened” to “see” his true and intended self, and he chose to turn himself around. He recaptures joy. The novella speaks of him finding his ability to laugh again: “For a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!”

It is so refreshing to see Scrooge’s ending. And although he himself is a work of fiction, he could be you or I when it comes to choices in life that may be based in a fiction of our own making, or, perhaps one that was wrongly spoken over us. What “fiction” do we believe about ourselves that is less than that for which we were created? Are we willing to let our own “eyes” be opened to the “good report” for which the price has already been paid?

Marley and Scrooge are still speaking this lesson with their story all these many years later. You (and I) are beautifully and wonderfully made, His masterpieces. The value of each individual life, brimming with purpose and hope, is His reason for “The Season”.

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