I was up about 5:30 this morning, out on the deck having a cup of coffee, and pondering some valuable input I received this past week. It was advice about this blog. Just a side note… I sure wish that whoever came up with blog as a name for this sort of thing, had given it a little more thought. Blog…it’s just an ugly word. Like blah…as is blah blah blah. Or just plain blah, for that matter.
On second thought, blog is kind of the perfect word for most of them that I’ve read. I would really like for mine to be different.
Funny thing, communication.
The input I got, had to do with my approach to what I write in these. I spent a lot of years as an advertising copy writer. Goodness, I’ve banged out countless radio and TV spots, newspaper ads, and lots of advertising brochure copy. Consequently, when I sit down to write, with the obvious hope being that you will decide to get in the car and come to Ragtown, try as I may, it always ends up sounding like, “Please come! Oh, please come!” to me.
The input I received was this: The people reading your blog are the same people you talk to every weekend at the theater, and you love them. And they’re interested in what you have to say, or they wouldn’t be reading. Quit treating them like customers. They’re your friends.
Point taken.
The other thing is, I just haven’t enjoyed writing something that I was always hoping would work, consequently I haven’t been consistent about the blog.
So it’s a brand new day, and what this will be from now on, is just me keeping in touch with you. I still want you to come to the theater, but I’m just going to trust that you will, whenever it works out for you to do that.
It is hard to believe that we just wrapped up our 35th production, and are about halfway through our 11th year. Elizabeth & Mary was among my favorites. It was sweet and funny, and I will miss that terrific cast. We all had a little get-together yesterday, after the last performance, and, as always, we were overcome by how blessed we are to have so many wonderful people who have been drawn to do this work alongside us. Robin and I drove home talking about that, and got a little choked up more than once. Just thankful.
Now it’s on to the next show. We’re taking this week to relax, then we’ll tear this set down, and start building the Elliffe’s cottage, the school for Children’s Home No. 13, and painting the snow-capped mountains and forested valleys of Norpol Province. In the evenings, Glenn will don his Nicklaus cap, polish up his dancing boots and start working with a brand new cast.
This year I am particularly excited about staging Say Nicklaus again. Over the past few months I’ve completed work on adapting this play into a book. It is about a hundred page novella called Say Nicklaase…A Great & Wonderful Story. It’s basically the same story that we present in the musical, but you get to learn a little more about Nicklaus and Meena Elliffe, Cornelius Houchen, Ula Goiterflaven, and the children. We will be offering the print version of the book for sale at the theater. It will also be published as an ebook, and audiobook.
I have great hopes for this little book reaching a lot of folks over time, with its reassuring message of knowing who you are in Christ—your true identity—regardless of how or where you were brought up.
Oh—and this is going to be fun—we’re going to set up a camera to do a time lapse video of tearing down this set, and building the next one. We’ll share that on Back Stage Pass and on Facebook. We have a lot of new things we’re going to be doing on Facebook, hoping to increase our attendance. To help us with that, check in on our Ragtown Gospel Theater Facebook page often, and like and share our posts.
I’ll be back in touch again soon, but in the meantime, don’t forget…
Get Out’a That Boat!
Chip:
This is the first blog I’ve read of yours…and it’s not blah at all. 😉
I have a favor to ask. I bought one of the dove prints as a gift for my best friend. I love the story behind the painting and would like to recount it to her when I present the present. ☺
I was going to attempt to write it down and re tell it, but it would be so much better in your words.
So, in an upcoming post, could you re tell the story of your visit to Israel with the visit from the single white dove and it’s meaning/interpretation in your own words?
Much appreciation,
Sandra
Hi Sandra,
Thank you so much. It delights me that you want to give the Jerusalem Dove to your friend. That story is, which I’m including below, is actually already in the tube with the print. I hope she likes both the picture, and the story behind it.
Jerusalem Dove
Every day is filled with wonder when you visit Israel. It is more than seeing places that you’ve heard about since you were a child. Each one of those sites stirs something within you, almost like a memory. It is all so foreign, so exotic, and yet there is a strange sense of familiarity.
The same indwelling Spirit of Christ who lives within every born again child of God, also walked among those ancient walls and along those rocky paths for thirty-three years, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. How could there not be some lingering sense of belonging?
At the same time, ninety-eight percent of the people in Israel absolutely reject Jesus. In the birthplace of Christianity, a mere two percent are believers. His Holy Spirit sees those “unborn children of God” through your eyes when you are there, and your heart aches. Experiencing that uncomfortable sense of spiritual isolation is uncommon for someone who grew up in West Texas, so when a group of us were there in 2013, it seemed that the Lord gave us a very special moment of reassurance.
Several of us were standing in the men’s court at the base of the Western Wall, commonly called the Wailing Wall. It is the only existing remnant of Herod’s Temple, which was destroyed in 70 A.D., and the place where Jews and pilgrims famously stand and recite prayers, tucking written prayers into the crevices between the massive stones.
I recall seeing a flash of movement above us, and all of us looked up to see a single pure white dove flying across the face of the wall. Of course, the immediate thought each of us had, was of the Spirit of God revealed in the form of a dove to Jesus after His baptism.
The dove landed in a large niche between two stones high on the wall, and remained there, looking out over those of us below for a few moments. The memory of it is indelible. There amid all those ancient, venerated sites, and it was a single white dove that left each of us looking at one another in astonished wonder.
I wanted to share that moment in a painting. I hope that Jerusalem Dove will serve to reassure you that in spite of what may appear hopeless, God has this world well in hand.
In Dependence,
Chip Polk