CAN Christmas Come Too Soon?

Every year it seems we all complain that the retailers are rushing the seasons, particularly when Christmas decorations come out before Halloween. I know I have groused and complained and had a bad attitude in the past.

A couple weeks ago, I found myself with a very critical spirit and I began complaining to someone about it all.

But yesterday, I had an EPHIPHANY. (Oh, this IowaGirl does love word play!)

If the retailers want to deck the halls early, before Thanksgiving–bring it on, I say! I mean, it’s not like I just love Halloween and hate besmirching it with those nasty Christmas decorations. And their decorations can’t MAKE me buy things. And it’s certainly not because we know that Jesus absolutely was born December 25th and that you are only supposed to celebrate a birthday on THE DAY of the birthday.

AND, it’s not like the world hasn’t tried to suck out every last drop of joy and meaning and presence out of the Christmas season with the politically correct “Happy Holidays” (C’mon. Does my saying Merry Christmas really *really* force you to think/believe/act differently?), disallowing anything even remotely religious from the public square (And that star on the top of the town square tree . . . is that so distracting that you can’t just enjoy others’ joy?), and sanitizing every last Christmas Carol that we sing at WINTER concerts.

And I don’t mean that last paragraph sarcastically. I really am so sad that this is how polarized our country has become: We can’t “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud . . . Do not be conceited” (Romans 12).
So, my epiphany. I am going to enjoy this Christmas season every last minute this culture will let me do so. I say to the retailers, Bring on the Christmas Fanfare!
I am going to revel in the trees and ornaments, remembering that we gussy up because a Savior is coming . . .
I am going to appreciate any deals that the retailers are offering, knowing that they are as financially tight as the rest of us. I will offer a few words of encouragement and affirmation and hope that His love will ease their worries.

I am going to shop wisely, holding each loved one in mind, glad that the tradition of gift giving allows me the opportunity to commemorate the the gift I have been given of the birth, death, resurrection and anticipation of the return of Jesus.

I am going to, as Mike Mason calls it, “practice the presence of people”. I am going to step away from the computer and look into people’s eyes. His presence is *the* present He gave and gives, and I want to incarnate that gift to family, friends and strangers.

I am grateful that I live in a country where we can put up trees and say Merry Christmas and sing praise at the top of our lungs and I know that probably the worst that can happen is that I might get a little grief because I am not being sensitive enough to others’ beliefs and religions. But I won’t be beheaded or burned or stoned or shunned or thrown in a prison. I think that is worth a little joy and celebration.

This year, and every year, Christmas cannot come too soon! I have the perfect excuse/opportunity/invitation/joy of *sharing* why I celebrate Christmas and *inviting* others to the stable, where there is PLENTY of room. In fact, we want more people to squeeze in with us.

There is room in this economy, in this culture, in this climate, in this space, in my heart for an early Christmas!

I will enJOY this season and enJOY people and enJOY telling the great *Good News*: the *Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Messiah*!

Mary said it best:

“I’m bursting with God-news;
I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
beginning with Abraham and right up to now.”
No. Christmas does not come one moment too soon. For any of us.
Merry Christmas, with Love!

And After the Last Word . . .

I have been meaning to write about the Tree Dedication for my Aunt June.  It has been hard to write about for several reasons.  I think the words I would use to describe the event are fraught and redemptive remembering.

The fraughtness of it was due to family dynamics, rainy weather, a room bursting with grief, and subplots to the ongoing narrative.  How can one rainy morning hold so much tension and pain and sadness?  How can a heart hold it all?

As I sat and listened to the class members share the story of how the memorial arboretum came to be, I was struck by the passion in each of their voices.  It seemed to me that what had started as a kind idea had become, for them, a way to grieve their own losses.  I knew that something special was happening in the room.

When their loved one’s name was called, the families were invited to stand up, introduce themselves, and share a little about their loved one.  I was amazed at how many family members of each honored classmate came to the memorial . . . Each late classmate had at least two people there and there were as many as eight family members.  Some had passed on quite recently while others had been gone for 30-plus years.  However, there was no difference in the passion and grief with which the family members spoke.

I thought about that for quite some time . . . for some of us, it had been many, many years since our loss.  Why had so many of us shown up with our families and our grief and our tears?

And I think I have it.  Or at least part of it, anyway.  It’s that word again:  Remember.

It was such a gift that the class remembered our loved ones.

You see, when June died, it was fresh for everyone.  Not just us, her family, but all of our friends who loved us and hated to see us grieve.  But then the months went by and the years went by and babies were born, other people died, friends moved away, and so it seemed that June was . . . forgotten.  And I didn’t feel comfortable saying, “Hey.  My aunt was murdered 20 years ago and did you know?  Did you remember that she existed?  She lived, she loved, she laughed, she was present!  Do you remember that someone is missing from my and my family’s lives?”

So for all these years, I spoke only with Grief about my lovely, vivacious Aunt June.  Grief remembered with me.  And Grief ushered us into Redemptive Remembering.

On a very rainy morning on July 4, 2009, the Iowa Falls High School Class of 1969 chose to remember.  And they chose to tell us that they remembered.  And they listened to our memories.  And they gifted us–and others to come–with a permanent place to remember.

I will remember that morning for as long as I live. I will remember that there will be no last word now, but many words as family and friends and visitors stand before that Juneberry tree and grieve and laugh and remember.

Talking to Grief

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don’t know you’ve been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.

(Denise Levertov)

The Last Word

Everything was happening in such a hurry!  Having just landed from Germany barely 10 days before my wedding, every minute counted.  I needed to . . . choose the flowers, finalize the music, help clean up the family farm (on which I was getting married), attend bridal showers, pick out a cake, get my wisdom teeth pulled . . .

 

So when I landed in Des Moines, I put off seeing my Aunt June (my dad’s sister) and her husband, Kim, because I was going to see them shortly.  I was anxious to see them.  I had stayed at their house the night before I left for Europe two years earlier and I had a lot to share!  June and Kim had been some of my biggest cheerleaders through the years and I did not want a hurried visit.

 I thought I was making every minute count, you see.

 On Thursday night, June 26, 1986, I was introducing my husband-to-be to some dear friends over dinner.  In the midst of the meal, the phone rang at their house and it was for me.  I took the receiver and heard my mom say, “Something has happened at June and Kim’s.  June is hurt.  Your father and I are headed down to Des Moines.  Go ahead and finish your dinner and visit, then come home.  I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”

 I started to ask questions, but Mom cut me off:  “I don’t know anything.  Just enjoy the rest of your visit and then come home.  I love you.”

 It’s been 23 years and my heart is beating fast as I type this.

Twenty-three years ago we drove home and waited by the phone.  Sitting there, I decided to turn the television on and, no joke, when the screen came on, Kim and June’s house was on the screen, and there were police crawling all over it.  Police cars, an ambulance, neighbors . . . it was a scene of chaos.

 Some pretty woman was talking about a 35-year-old woman found stabbed in her home . . . Husband’s whereabouts were unknown . . . Not many details yet . . . “Victim’s identity not being released pending notification of next-of-kin.”  They had just notified me.

 I watched myself slide to the floor and heard a terrible sound come out of my mouth.  My fiancé grabbed hold of me and started to turn off the television, but I would not let him.  It was my only link to information . . . to June.

 A few moments later—or was it a lifetime?—the phone rang and it was my Aunt Julie (my mom’s sister).  “Kirs.  Your mom called.  June is dead.  Your folks are down there trying to figure it out.  Your mom will call as soon as she can.”

 “But what happened?  How can this be?”

 “That’s all I know.  I’ll call if I hear more.”

 I hung up the phone and looked around the living room.  I felt like I had stepped into a Dali painting.  It was all surreal.

 I started flipping channels.  Each station had its own special murder logo: a dagger, dripping with blood; the word MURDER, starting with a light red at the top and ending in deep red at the bottom; a knife with blood dripping off the blade. 

I waited.  Suddenly, those moments I was determined to make count just . . . stopped.

Twenty-three years ago today, my Aunt June was murdered by her husband, Kim.  He stabbed her five times in the heart and then left her on her kitchen floor. Their eight-year-old son found her bleeding to death when he went in to see if dinner was ready yet.  He ran back across the street to a neighbor’s home where his brothers, 11 and 7, were playing and told the neighbor about his mom.

It was a long night waiting to hear from my parents.  A long night to greet them as they finally got home.  A long weekend planning for a funeral—and a wedding.  A long week gathering details and trying to make sense of what could have happened in that house, between those two people. 

 It has been a long 23 years.  My family has never been the same.

We decided to go ahead and have the wedding.  June’s funeral was on Monday, June 30^th, and we were married on Saturday, July 5^th.  Kim’s parents came and brought the boys to the wedding.  We had been family for many years.  We had enjoyed many holidays, celebrations, and dinners together.  This was new territory.  There is really not a how-to book for this sort of thing . . . Emily Post didn’t include this situation in her book.

 

 So we all did the best we could.  We moved through the funeral.  We mourned June.  We welcomed family and friends coming in for the wedding.  We painted farm buildings and fences and each other.  I tried on my dress for the women.  We laid awake at night trying to figure out what we missed, how this happened, what June did not tell us.  CS Lewis said, “No one ever told me grief felt so much life fear.”  True words.  Fear moved into my heart and set up housekeeping.

 Kim was charged with first-degree murder.  He was offered and accepted a plea bargain of second-degree murder and a jail sentence of 50 years (of which he had to serve, and did serve, 10 years).  Custody of the three boys, after much negotiation, went to Kim’s parents, with the boys visiting June’s family—us—on weekends and holidays, etc.  Just like a divorce—the divorce that I wish Kim would have initiated rather than killing June.

 Over the ensuing years, my grandfather grew more and more bitter.  My grandmother entered a sort of . . . la-la land.  She had loved Kim a lot—we all had.  Eventually, they made contact and a kind of détente entered.  I say a “kind of détente” because I think it really was more a giving up for her.  It was too much work to feel all the emotions and live with all the questions.  We could not make sense of it and that is a hard place to live.  Cheap grace seems easier, at least at the time.

 The rest of us struggled in different ways.  My new husband and I went back to Europe.  June’s brothers and sister, and the in-laws, followed the legal process, grieved, raged, and resigned themselves to the reality that there was not going to be any real answers; at least, not answers that would be true enough or comforting enough to fill the void June had left.

 So for 23 years, Kim got the last word.  I hated that.  I hated that when we talked about June (which was sporadic because it was Just. So. Painful.), it always ended with the fact that she was murdered by her husband.  We lost two people we dearly loved.  All that was left were their three boys who were growing into young men and making their own lives, and a tombstone that we could visit. 

 Kim served his time and was released to start his life over.  The boys graduated from high school, college, and one from law school.  My dad’s eyes lost their twinkle and his hair seemed to gray overnight.  My grandpa died about 11 years ago and my grandmother one year ago.  The cousins were fairly distant with each other.  Sadness upon sadness.

 But this summer, we’ve been given a chance to have the last word. 

 Several years ago I was doing some googling and came upon June’s high school class website.  They had remembered her, and other classmates who had passed on, by posting pictures of them and saying a few words. 

 There on my screen beamed her beautiful face with her 1969 thick shiny bouffant hair, eyes that twinkled with mirth, and a smile that owned her face!  June, alive!  Words that come to mind are vibrant, ebullient, laughing, earthy, flirty, passionate, passionate about her children, contemplative, real . . . a woman who knew she had made mistakes and was determined to live beyond them.

 I e-mailed the class representative and thanked her for remembering June.  I expressed how much it meant that I had come across the site to see them remember her . . . to know it was not just her family who missed her.  Linda Goodenberger Pierce sent back a lovely note and thus began an e-mail friendship I have enjoyed.

 Several months ago Linda let me know that the Class of 1969 had decided that during their 40^th reunion they would plant a tree at Calkins Nature Center  in Iowa Falls as a memorial to June and their other classmates who had died.  She wondered if I could provide addresses to family and friends who might want to know and receive an invitation. 

 The news hit me with some emotional force, but it took me some time to figure out why.  As I corresponded with Linda about the dedication and the boys and June, I realized that it was an opportunity for each of us in the family had been invited to have the last word and to choose what our last word would be regarding June. 

 Roger Ebert says “Resentment is letting someone live in your mind rent-free.”  I would amend it to say it is allowing someone to live in your being rent-free.  I think my grandparents, in pretty different ways, let Kim and the murder inhabit their being.  They are gone now and I trust them to God.

 In the Bible, God spoke everything into being: 

 “God spoke: “Earth, green up! Grow all varieties
      of seed-bearing plants,
   Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.”
      And there it was.
   Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,
      all varieties,
   And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.
      God saw that it was good.”  (Genesis 1, The Message)

 He created—and creates—by his Word.  Words matter.  They have the power to destroy and they have the power to heal.

 On this July 4^th, at 10a at Calkins Nature Center, a tree—growing strong and tall and beautiful—will be planted as a lasting testimony of a life God spoke into being.  God created June for his pleasure.  She was a gift to our family. 

And so from now on, when I speak of June I will speak words that I hope will help create a new story of healing and connection for our family.  I hope to break the silence and speak June’s name—with some grief, but with so much more joy and love.  I will speak about her life and tell stories about the woman I was privileged to have in my life. 

 By that tree, I will tell her sons of their ebullient, vibrant, passionate, giggly, fun-loving, cool, delightful mom who delighted in every single thing about them.  I will remind them of how wanted they were and how enjoyed they were and how much joy she took in relating the stories of their adventures and exploits.  I will let them know how fun it was to listen to and watch her recount their successes and not-so-successful successes! 

 And even when we are gone, that tree will still be there.  My son, my brother and his children, and my cousins’ children, and their children’s children, and so on, will be able to go see a tree that was planted and dedicated to the memory of a woman who loved life, loved her family, and especially loved her boys.

 By God’s grace, we will have the last Word:

“I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”

 Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I’ll be God to them, they’ll be sons and daughters to me.” (Revelations 21, The Message)

All I Ever Needed to Know in Life I Learned in Covenant Players

As I approach 45, I find myself looking back at what is–if I am very fortunate–the first half of my life (Who knows?  Maybe it is the first three-quarters? ).  I have had an extraordinary life.  If I had died last year, which the doctors told me was entirely possible–although things look good now–the joys, adventures, blessings, gifts would have far, far, far exceeded the regrets.  If I ponder what lies beneath that last sentence for any length of time, it takes my breath away.  In truth, the word extraordinary doesn’t begin to name these almost-45 years.

My time in an international Christian repertory theater company, Covenant Players, although only five years, makes up a significant number of the experiences that are extraodinary.  Getting to tour and perform on three continents in three languages for thousands and thousands of people . . . well, how can I even give you a taste of how deeply that shaped who I am today?

On Facebook, people with whom I toured or served while in the company, as well as people who went before and after me, have found each other and we are (re)connecting.  I think it is because we understand what it was to live out of a van with three or four other people for 10 months of the year, learning and performing at least 200 new roles during that time and performing hundreds of times, and living on very little money while feeling very rich.  And also because in that environment, you tend to bond quickly and deeply.  There is one woman who served in Covenant Players about 10 years before I did, Andie Casey, who I have gotten to know through Facebook and we can’t wait to meet face-to-face.  We know each other because we share a foundational and unique experience.

Alright, the above was a long introduction to what is below, which is a questionnaire that some former Covenant Player put together and has been dropped on all of us.  I can’t tell you how much fun it has been to read others’ responses!  I held off filling it out because it felt overwhelming, and because some answers are experiences shared with my ex-husband–”we stories” that I am still trying to figure out how to tell because “we” aren’t a “we” anymore.  But the other day, I sat down and just started typing.  It has brought back memories, put some things into perspective, and reminded me of who I am.  

A lot of people in my present life don’t even know I was involved in Covenant Players.  Others knew vaguely, but it was so hazy that it just got a faint smile when I mentioned something about it.  I am amazed, still, that even my family has never really asked about what my experiences were on the road.  And maybe that is as it should be; I don’t know.  I just know that when someone else has done something so unique, I could sit and listen to stories all day long. 

However, there have been peole that have asked and I have tried to give some idea of the diverse opportunities and crazy situations and the miracles that made up these five years.  With this questionnaire, I think I was given the right questions to make a more robust response.

And so, with all that set-up, context, and introduction . . . my responses to the questionnaire “All I Ever Needed to Know in Life I Learned in Covenant Players!”

NAME: Kirsten (Chaplin Rucquoi) Christianson

Year(s) served? 83-88

Favorite Area: I had favorites for different reasons, but here goes:

1 Black Gold (Nigeria Cameroon), 1987

2 Catalyst Europe (Military on the Continent, Great Britain & Ireland, with special love for N. Ireland/Ireland!!), 1985

3 Catalyst 5 (let’s see . . . IN, OH, MI, VA, WV, MD, PA, DC and I think one more?), but this is a favorite more for my unit rather than the geographical area: Christina, Brad, Allen Bartley and Annika Linander (Oh Annnika!  Where are you!!?)

Top 5 Favorite Plays:

1 Not By Me

2 The Night is for Hiding & Glorious Day

3 The Couch & Unto the Least of These

4 The Western in which communion is served . . . indescribable

5 Proxy . . . Proxy, Proxy, Proxy! 

Five I loved to perform:  Name of the Game (although as far as I am concerned, Kapp and Linda Brown did it the very, very best!); Legacy (any role); Turnabout (am I remembering that title correctly?); 4′ 8.5″; and honestly, Search.  What an amazing play.  Really.

And for the record, LOVED these plays but HATED to perform them:  Anybody Know the Way (my Waterloo!); Concentration (a spur AND a burr for me!); et Fantastique (I can’t even remember the English title!)! Bah!

Most Memorable Miracle Story: I think my whole time in CP was a miracle . . . Sometimes when I am in a grocery store doing the mundane shopping I will stop and think, “I used to travel around the world and perform these amazingly Spirit-filled plays and live on people’s offerings and see God change people’s (inluding my) lives . . . And now here I am in MN upset that I can’t find my favorite kind of microwave popcorn!” 

Also, I think it is a miracle that Gary Barcus didn’t drive up to Far West and kill me when I called him from the road to tell him that I had backed into a brand new Ferrari (without the required backer) and that the Ferrari hood was now melded to the engine.  Although I heard a few choice words while he intook some breath, he was nothing but sweetness to me. 

Story: Marc Rucquoi, Emma Dowman and I were in Nigeria in our #$%&! VW van that we had to hammer on the alternator to get started each! and! every! time!  We were in the midst of this village when all of a sudden this group of about 30 villagers came out with masks and swords and machetes and in tribal paint and clothing.  (Now, remember I was VERY YOUNG–and forget that Anita Mix had SPECIFICALLY WARNED AGAINST DOING THIS in her most-helpful letter she left us.)  I felt a Kodak  moment come on and took out  my camera to capture this amazing spectacle on camera.  ALL. HELL. BROKE. LOOSE!!  They surrounded our van, beating on it, trying to reach into the open windows, and trying to open the doors, screaming, gesturing, etc., etc., etc.  Emma was in the back seat yelling, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”  Marc shouted, “Lock the door!  Emma!!!  Lock your door!”  “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”  Hands reached in and tore off my watch and tried to get the camera. 

We were mobbed and I knew we were going to die right there and we hadn’t telexed the office where we were in the last few days.  Doomed.

Somehow, Marc gunned the engine and we broke away!  Freedom!

But no.  Out of nowhere one of the men with a two-foot two-sided mask on his head dashed in front of the van!  Marc slammed on the brakes.  The man slowly turned so the scary side of the mask faced us and he pointed his sabers at us while he started chanting something.  The others started screaming and surrounding the van (and thus us) again.

“Jesus!  Jesus!  Jesus!”  I joined Emma.

Suddenly another one of the men who had been beating on our van began screaming AT THE OTHERS, including Scary Two-Face and swinging his saber at them, chasing them away from our van.  Then he turned to Marc and yelled, “Go now!  Go now!  Go now!”

We went NOW at Warp Speed and utterly silent.

Five minutes later, without looking at me Marc barked: “I hope like HELL that picture turns out!”

I feel that God intervened.  All kidding aside, we were in serious danger.

Did you get married in CP? Yes.  Yes I did. And very sadly, I got divorced after CP.

Favorite CMT quote: (from a play)  This is one off the top of my head.  I would have to dig through showcase notes to remember lines that really IMPACTED me.  “I’ve looked at the signs!  They all say, ‘This is the way’ and point in completely different directions.” (Hope I haven’t paraphrased it!)

Favorite CMT quote: (general speech)  Was made to me on a phone call when he was letting me know that while he would love to send me to Ireland (my request), he needed Marc in France and if we were married, then he needed me in France, too.  My favorite quote is at the end, which is when I knew I had been finessed:

CMT:  So you  see, Dear, Pam (the other French unit leader) and Marc are needed in France.  If you are really going to marry Marc, then I need you in France, too.  After you go to France, THEN  you can go to Ireland.

ME:  But Chuck, I don’t speak French. 

CMT:  When I was over there a couple years ago, I was amazed at how much of my French came back to me!

ME:  But Chuck, I don’t have any French to come back!  I’ve never even HAD French!  I’ve had three years of German and two years of Spanish.  But no French!

CMT:  You’re a smart girl; I know you will pick it right up!

Note:  I toured in French-speaking Europe for 18 months, living and performing in French.  I wouldn’t say I  picked it “right up”, but I did learn French and for the opportunity and the faith in me, I am so grateful to Chuck and the people who toured with me!  C’etait formidable!

Favorite Life Series: RAF, hands down.  Chase’s singlet kept me from ever looking at Scott Hamilton in the same way again!!

Most embarrassing stage moment: I was doing a footballer (think Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football) with Kerry Brooks at a very upscale Congregational church in Connecticut.  It was a dinner theater booking.  We were performing on a full stage and it was the requisite 4′ off the ground.  I pulled away the “football” and stood up to deliver my Cleo line.  However, as I stood up my heel came down on my skirt AND my slip and thus keeping them down around my ankles.  So I was standing in front of 300 upper-class Congregationalists in my blouse, panty hose and underwear, with an invisible football. 

Kerry rolled over and covered his face, guffawing.  The audience gasped.  I threw the football over my shoulder and ran off stage.  Kerry followed, poked his head back out and said, “That was for free!”

Brought down the house.

Most unusual experience: Every! Single! Day! in Nigeria.  I woke up each day thinking, “I wonder what will happen today!”  I ate goat with the skin and fur on; I watched a “doctor” throw a baby chicken into a pit of alligators to see what God had to say (while people who were “possessed” walked around us with manacles and chains on their ankles and wrists); I continued on with plays while bats flew overhead and rats skittered across the dirt floor . . . And also, performing in this church in Virginia that had spent an unGodly amount of money on a stained glass window that they would unveil to a timpani roll at the beginning of their Sunday telecast . . .

Ten Things I learned in CP:

1 That I had an accent.(Hey, I’m from Iowa!  Who knew bathroom was just a two-syllable word?)

2 How to grease the nipples of a Ford transit van (thanks to Marc; it’s how he courted me!)

3 Pentecostals and Catholics are Christians too!

4 How to work HARD and play HARD (Thank you, Ruth-Angela Norman!)

5 To learn lines, own lines and perform in other languages (and to project, pivot, own lines, eye-to-eye contact, etc.)

6 I could do far more than I believed, thanks first to God and second to CMT’s trust and the opportunities he gave me!

7 The difference between what God requires and what are just my preferences (learned whilst living with other people and them sharing what it is like to live with me!)

8 How weak and selfish and prideful I can be (especially learned while I was unit leading)

9 How to affirm people

10 The reality of Jesus Christ

And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg! 

So there is a thumbnail sketch of five years of my life . . . and that doesn’t even cover the time that the Salinas Police Department held guns on our unit and made us raise our hands in the air when someone called in that we had a gun–which was a TOY GUN we were using in a play we were rehearsing! . . . or the time Vaughn Drumm and I hitchhiked with two Turkish men when we broke down in Belgium in the middle of winter in the middle of the night, and we, along with the rest of our unit, ended up at a Greek restaurant owned by two Greek Communists . . . or the time we performed Proxy, a play in which a guy has climbed up on a ledge and is going to jump when a woman walks by and finds she can’t just ignore him, and an audience member came up and told us that he had been planning to kill himself later that night but the play reminded him that he was not alone and he was going to go talk to the pastor . . . and several journals-full more. 

Yes, these last 45 years have been exquisite!

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