People often comment about us “having a break” between shows, and that is always sort of amusing. Between shows at Ragtown is pandemonium. We tear down one set and build a new one during the day, and have rehearsals at night. It is our busiest and most taxing time.
Last night the members of the Ragtown Gospel Band gathered with me at the theater for rehearsal. You have to envision the scene. We had cleared off a spot for the piano there in the middle of the stage, surrounded by the rubble from the Lazarus set. All around us were stacks of lumber, huge piles of rocks and the big textured styrofoam blocks we use to create the buildings, rolls of carpet scraps, tools, plants—it looks like a tornado struck inside the building.
There we are in the midst of all the things we use to create the illusion of reality on the sets of the Ragtown productions, and I am talking to the group about the core of what I believe is our mission, which, strangely enough, is keeping it real. Never being phony. Never presenting the perspective that everything in life for a Christian is a piece of cake. Pat answers are so easy. And they roll off the tongue far too easily.
Our shared hope is that the music and the plays at Ragtown touch people in the midst of the rubble that may be surrounding them at that moment. It is that the words will convey the hope—a very real hope for survival and even victory. And it isn’t only after we die and go to Heaven. Sometimes what we really need is a just flat spot in the midst of the fray.
Standing there in the middle of the wreck of what was, such a short time ago, so beautiful and so perfect, I saw a picture of exactly the way Jesus works in the middle of our predictably storm ravaged lives. We five sang together, talked about important things, hoped for good things, laughed about silly things, prayed together, and loved each other. It was just what I needed.
After the group left, I sat there awhile longer by myself and played the piano, just soaking up the calm. Soaking up the assurance that everything would be back in order soon.
When we open SAINT JOHN & THE TELEVANGELIST on June 14th…it will be. The stage will be beautiful, and the bombastic Reverend Joey Hallelujah and sweet John the Apostle will make us laugh together, and remind how good, and how faithful our Lord and Savior is.
I’m about to go back to work. I’m going to try to remember to go stand in that flat spot for a few minutes throughout the day, and soak up a bit of the calm. A bit of the assurance. A bit of the joy.
In Dependence!
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