GODSPELL Back in My Life after 20 years & on Broadway after 40
October 24, 2011
by Bowie Snodgrass
Like the kids in Glee, being part of a musical theater group in middle and high school helped me find a place where I fit in. And growing up a priest’s daughter, being in Godspell at age 14 made me feel like Jesus could be fun and cool.
Godspell shaped my teenage theology. There are still passages of Matthew that I hear and think of the corresponding Godspell scene, joke, or song; lyrics I see in the Episcopal hymnal and my mind clicks over to the Stephen Schwarz melody.
Godspell is an ensemble piece about Jesus’ love for his people, their love for him, and how Jesus teaches them to love each other (above money, hypocrisy, grievances, etc). “Come sing about Love! That made us first to be. Come sing about Love! That made the stone and tree. Come sing about Love! That draws us lovingly.” “So thank the Lord, Oh thank the Lord for all his love.” “Day by day, Three things I pray: To see thee more clearly, Love thee more dearly, Follow thee more nearly, Day by day.” It’s sincere and simple (very little modern-day irony or Broadway glitz).
I really did love the rest of my troupe in the Olean Theater Workshop when I was 14 and twenty years later, we’re still friends, many now parents, some in ministry, spread-out and in touch via Facebook.
The show was already twenty years old when I was in it in the 90s. I used to listen to my parent’s copy of the original Broadway soundtrack on vinyl.
I knew the new production would need to improve upon the thousands of high school, college, and community theater productions out there for it to be worthy of a Broadway revival. And it was. Amazing. It kept most of the beloved original material, yet felt completely fresh with up-to-date cultural references and dance moves.
In last night’s production, lines struck me with new power. Lyrics resonated deeper. I cried, laughed, and clapped (in that order).
A few people I went with commented that Jesus was blond and John the Baptist/Judas was black, but I was struck by the diversity of the rest of the young cast: Latino, Asian, African American, Jewish, gay, straight, thick and thin. They looked like NYC and America. And it felt like they really loved each other.
In a Playbill interview about Godspell, composer and lyricist Stephen Schwarz says, “there’s a joy that comes from the story and also from the theatrical experience… actors and energy and words and music and the exhilaration that the theatre provides.”
I pray this production runs a long, long time, so that a new generation can be exhilarated by a fun, cool Jesus musical. And I want to go back once or twice more!
what we worship
October 5, 2011
After a lovely ritual we talked some tonight about the Occupy Wall Street protest. Then I came to look at the Lectionary Readings for the week.
Guess what the old testament reading is?
that’s right.
making the golden calf.
and I quote:
So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” — exodus 32:2-4
just to refresh your memory if you have forgotten the story, God and Moses are not at all happy with this and bicker like a pair of exhausted parents:
God says those are “Your people who YOU brought up out of Egypt.” and tells Moses to stand aside.
But Moses says oh no honey, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?
thankfully Moses wins this argument, but the major issues at stake don’t seem to have changed for 4000 years.
What we worship matters.
when we worship what we build with our own gold, we forget about the love of God who frees us from all kinds of slavery. We look to wealth and security as real things, but they have no more power to liberate us than a golden idol.
Meditation in Movement
December 12, 2010
For me, dance can be an act of prayer. In movement I can pray the longings of my heart for which I have no words. In the dance that I have posted below (music by our own Isaac Everett!) I was dancing out my sense of longing, a hopeful expectation, calling out and listening for a response, and finding myself turned around and heading in an unexpected direction. (Oh, and keep watch for the amazing spontaneously transforming sign.) At the beginning of this third week of Advent, I lean forward and look out into the distance, toward the coming of God’s kindom, when God will fill the hungry with good things, raise up the lowly, set the prisoners free, and lift those who are bowed down. May it be so.
Waiting for Fragile Things
December 5, 2010
This fall, I got to hold a friend’s newborn baby in my arms. He seemed fragile to me, with his delicate fingers, unfocused eyes, soft skull, and feeble neck muscles. It was seeing that final detail in person that made me understand the total dependence of infants on their families in a real and visceral way. He needed my help to hold up his head.
A couple of years ago, I was talking to some friends at a seminary, and they started discussing an ancient Christology that eventually was declared heresy. According to the understanding of the nature of Jesus that was developed in Adoptionism, he was born as an ordinary human and then “adopted” by God at his baptism as God’s spirit, shaped like a dove, descended on him; God’s nature and God’s power did not enter into Jesus until this moment. Two of my friends argued that they believed this to be true, that God’s nature and God’s power could not possibly have rested in an infant’s body.
There was something very disturbing about this idea to me. I want to believe that incarnation means that God understands what it is like to live with the fragility and limitation that being human entails. I want to believe that God knows what it is like to be poor, hungry, tired, unable to communicate clearly, and dependent on people for life itself. When I need God and can’t even put words to my prayer, I want to believe that God “remembers” what it was like.
The scripture in the lectionary for today, the second Sunday of Advent, is Isaiah 11:1-10. It begins, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” This image speaks to me of fragility, of the seedling that needs protection, of the green life that needs care to thrive. This Advent, I am keeping watch for fragile things, the green shoot bursting into my life from some dark corner, the infant idea that needs my help to hold up its head, the emergence of God in delicate and breakable moments. Oh come, oh come Emanuel.
American Idol(atry)
December 3, 2010
Tonight is the third night of Hanukkah, which celebrates both the new found political independence of Judea from the Seleucid Empire, and the eight day reconsecration of the Temple of Jerusalem, which Antiochus the IV dedicated to Zeus, thus defiling the most sacred site of Jewish faith. The revolt began in earnest when a Jewish priest refused to sacrifice to Zeus, and killed the one who came to sacrifice in his place.
Tonight is also the sixth night of Advent, the season of anticipating the birth of a true king, worthy of homage, during the reign of a client king of an occupying power who claimed its political leaders to be divine.
We pay particular attention to joyfulness and giving this season. Giving usually means spending money somehow. And Americans are well practiced money spenders, so there should be no surprise at the level of commercialization during this season, though it’s sometimes overwhelming to see so many demands to buy products you haven’t heard before and promises that true joy and happiness follow their owning the new 5Gen WidGet!(tm) or that those who love you don’t really love you unless you get a Baloney MyBox, the bigger version of the MyKick you already have.
So between the historical roots of this time of year of enforced false gods and the contemporary sensation bombardment of chocolate jesuses and soda-pop saints, I think it would be a good idea to reflect on Idolatry.
Before we make a differentiation between a true and false deity, let’s ask what a deity is. Here’s my best answer right now: the principal foundation of a human’s heart by which all other perspectives and behaviors will defer and accommodate. Kind of an abstract definition, but I can demonstrate:
That priest held the Lord so dear that even under threat of death he could not show worship to anything else, and murdered another out of distress that his victim was about to do what he risked death to refrain from. This man would become Maccabee, or Hammer, leading a rebel army and winning political freedom and the beloved temple back.
The unseen father of the friend in “Ferris Beuler’s Day Off” made the car the center of his life, with consequences on his troubled and terrified son, who ultimately took violent action against it
So a deity does not have to be a supernatural force, or have an inherently spiritual connotation. Well, an Idol doesn’t, at least. All an idol needs to be an idol is to seduce you thoroughly enough for you to act foolishly and dangerously for its sake, even so far as to alienate those who love you the most. Terrifyingly, this is the price of the true deity too: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother… he cannot be my disciple.” (l14:25-27) But fortunately, we can find the Lord in our neighbors.
An Idol, though, has no power. Or more accurately, it could have a lot of power, but only the power humans grant it. The car, no matter how cool it is, is only responsible for the family’s misery by the dad’s devotion to it.
We should all be for acting foolishly and dangerously for the sake of the Lord, and we naturally find it commendable and reasonable to act foolishly and dangerously for our family. But I (try) to draw the line at judo-throwing someone for the sake of a video game. Or mooning a live television camera for money (though a buttload of money might be tempting…) Or killing someone because a General said it was Okay.
Now WidGet!(tm)s are nice things. I have quite a few myself. And they actually could make nice gifts. But they are made by the hands of humans, to serve humans and to be dismissed by humans. Worshiping such a thing (whether it’s recognized as such or not) is not only stupidity, it is deadly. It either means that another human, who is a weakling sinner bag of flesh living in just as much uncertainty as you, is imagining themself your master, or you are ultimately worshiping yourself, which you can do until the horse you ride on gives you a good buck off a cliff and you realize you are subject to physics, not the other way around, and even the horse you think you controlled is stronger than you and decided it didn’t like your attitude.
Now next week I’ll write about the act of giving, the act of gratitude, and how to do them both properly (even when the gift is a WidGet!(tm)) without all these stupid idols screaming for our submission.
worship fully, spend less, give more, love all
December 2, 2010
Happy December 1st! I know its not my day… again. I keep checking it like a little kid who can’t wait to see what picture is behind the little paper door on the Advent calendar. And since December 1st is when those paper (or chocolate!) Advent calenders started for me as a kid, figured I’d offer up another post.
I’m so glad to have peeled away from lesson planning and research papering to meet up with Ula, Dan and a warm collection of Followers in the family room of Radical Living for their Advent/Book of Common Prayer Release Party in Brooklyn tonight. Following the prayers and scriptures that we shared together for December 1st (We even got a call from Shane Claiborne sending his love), there’s a note on Advent for December 1st in the Book of Common Prayer, and a link to an interesting looking website- http://www.adventconspiracy.org/story
I suggest checking out the “about” section- Worship fully, spend less, give more, love all; and the stories which I’ve linked to, which share our communities around the world are applying the above guidelines creatively in the celebration of Advent. One of their stories might also be something great to share with us in a future Advent blog post, if you’re blanking on what to say that day.
grateful,
amber
Of Robots and Redemption
November 28, 2010
My brother is an electrical engineer who works with robots, so I always keep my eye out for stories about robots and innovations in robotic technology. Last night, as I was thinking about this blog post, I ran into an article on the New York Times website: Robots, the Military’s Newest Forces. Reading it made me proud of my brother, who recently went through a logistical nightmare to switch work groups in his PhD program because he feared his ideas and inventions would be used to create machines designed for combat. It also made me despair for our country and our world. On this, the first Sunday in Advent, we read the famous prophesy from Isaiah (2: 1-5), “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Last night I sat in front of my computer reading about robots designed to bring death and wondered when we will start investing in the technology of life. In the plowshares and pruning hooks, books and dry erase markers, windmills and solar panels, water filters and medicine that we need to make our communities thrive. When will we stop learning war?
Advent Blog
November 28, 2010
Welcome to Transmission’s series of blog posts for the season of Advent. Seven men and women from the Transmission community have committed to writing one blog post each week for the four weeks of Advent. The posts might be related to the lectionary for the day, or might simply be the musings of the author. Whether you join us for one day or the entire season, we hope you will join us in clearing some space in our busy lives to prepare for the coming of the Christ.
Essence in Abstract
June 29, 2010
At our last planning meeting, we spent some time talking about the essential elements of Transmission. As our worship community continues to evolve, there are some aspects that are essential to its character; we don’t want to lose them. Here is our list. What are essential elements of your worship community? Let us know what you might add or take away from our list in the comments.
Creativity
User-Generated Content
Food
Un-Dogmatic
Defining Your Own Participation
Intimacy
Welcoming / Inclusion
Personal Spiritual Journey
Transmission Shows Up / Support
Music
Gender Inclusive Language for God
Christian-based
Free
Sunday Rituals
March 13, 2010
Usually when we talk about ritual in Transmission, we take it pretty seriously. We talk about it in a formal sense, as a performance that transforms someone or something from one state to another, as a space that creates community, as a moment where the usual boundaries can break down. It’s big and dramatic. It’s a wedding, a communion, a house blessing. It isn’t brushing your teeth. That, we like to say, is a habit and not a ritual.
And yet, I find myself thinking a lot these days about that habitual kind of “ritual.” The small and homely kind. Brushing your teeth, reading the paper, kissing someone good night and good morning. It seems to me that these things that we repeat – week by week, month by month, year by year – transform us too. They give shape and order to our lives. They make us into the people that we are becoming.
As the calendar rolled over to 2010, my brother and his girlfriend stayed with me for a couple of days. On Sunday morning over a leisurely breakfast, they pulled up their Sunday websites to share with me: PostSecret and the New York Times Weddings & Celebrations. As we looked over shoulders, the silence was punctuated by sighs, laughter, and the occasional groan. I was moved and surprised. My brother and his girlfriend are completely secular people, and yet their Sunday rituals still carry a sense of setting time aside for something special, sacred even. They bear witness to other people’s secrets. They share in other couples’ joy.
It made me think about my own habitual rituals. Are mine transforming me into a person of empathy, compassion, and joy? Do they shape me into the person that I would like to become? I’ve joined my brother and his girlfriend in reading secrets over Sunday breakfast, and added a dose of dance and poetry. Then I go to church, for the healing of the ritual and the shaping of the habit.