The Curtain Call

Philippians 2:12-13 - Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Overture

When there was the first curtain rise, the principal co-dancers moved to the music and placed their footsteps in the places where the Artistic Director had shown them. It was beautiful, rhythmic, and graceful. It was like watching heaven on earth. However, in time they opted to no longer follow that vision for the performance, but wanted to be like the Artistic Director themselves and make their own decisions. The result was noisy, chaotic, and disorderly. But that was a long, long time ago.

Act 1

Ever since then, the chaos has continued up until even now. Now I stand in the wings of the stage ready for my time to enter the stage. It’s a bustling place with lots of other performers. There is a general expectation of how to behave once on stage, but otherwise everyone is doing what they want to do. I notice lots of pain, neglect, laughing, jeering, singing, affection, hate, brokenness, but everyone finds some routine that is appealing to them. I don’t really think much about how this chaotic routine of suffering appears to the audience because the expectation is that we make the best of our time on stage for ourselves and then bow out when it’s time.

There’s a homely looking man in cheap clothing holding a book in the wings of the stage, but no one pays him any attention. His caring eyes are on all the performers as they dance to their own tune. No one cares about the book he holds. I ask one of the performers,

“Who is that man and what book is he holding?”

“He’s a nobody,” they respond. “He’s just an ugly stagehand. He has the libretto for this performance, but no one uses that anymore. It’s outdated and antiquated. People used to think we had an Artistic Director who inspired the writing of the libretto, but we know now that there is no such thing as an Artistic Director. If there had been an Artistic Director, why would there be all this chaos and suffering?”

They took me by the hand and off we went onto the stage. I notice some people on the stage have fallen and gotten hurt, but my peers tell me to pay them no mind. Focus on myself and my own dreams. If someone gets in our way, we shove them aside. This is our time on the stage.

I notice some other group of people who are trying to dance collectively to a different routine. Their movements are smooth, light, and peaceful. Sometimes they cross paths with me and my much larger group and this creates an annoying friction between us, but for the most part we try not to pay any attention to them. Still, I can’t help but notice how their performance is so different from mine in a joyous way. Their timing is synchronous and their movements are synthesized between them. It’s not the same for us. I move closer to them to watch them and I overhear one of them mention the libretto. Hmm, is that what is guiding their steps? I watch a little bit longer and notice there is a pattern. It’s not chaotic or focused on self. I gasp and say to myself, “It’s a choreography!” It’s intentional, meaningful, and purposeful.

Act 2

The first act is finishing and I exit to one of the wings when the stagehand catches my eye. In his hand is the libretto. Everyone hurriedly moves past him which creates the sensation of wind rushing towards him like a current. I want to look at the words contained in the libretto, but I’m caught by the hand of someone else and led to the back of the stage. My friends help style me into their image so that I look like the rest of them. We hurry to get back out there as the music begins.

I walk through the wing of the stage. There is the libretto in the hands of the homely stagehand again. My friends rush back onto the stage ready for their moment to shine. I let them pass me by. I take the libretto from his hands and slowly open it. As I read and study the theme of the story, it appears to me to be alive as the present performance itself. The Artistic Director’s story really made an impression upon my heart and I intensely treasure it. The chaos, the suffering, the injuries happening on stage were done by us, by our selfishness, by our cruelty, and not by the Artistic Director. My gaze looks up as I ponder how I could enact a performance of new gentleness on stage seeing as how it wasn’t a full choreograph. Time feels like it’s slipping away from me and I know that I cannot stay here forever. I have to get back on stage and take what I have learned. It isn’t enough to know what the libretto said, but I have to somehow embody it with my body, with my heart, with my soul.

I walk away from him lost in thought and then begin to contemplate how I could perform this next act. Unusual though, I hadn’t been taught to prepare for the stage in all my life. What I had been taught was to do what I thought best in my own eyes. I was told to be happy, chase my dreams for fame, for glory, and follow whatever my heart desired to do on stage. All of us had been aspiring to be a principal dancer, but perhaps life is so much more than our own success.

I walk into the light and join the chaotic performance. I dance in a way that felt difficult, different, but peculiarly like the way I should have always been dancing. So is this what life on the stage is supposed to be like? I look out at the audience who sit in darkness, I catch a glimpse of the stagehand sitting in the crowd. Perhaps he wants to see how the performance sounds and appears from the audience’s perspective.

I find the others who are dancing to the choreography which follows the theme of the libretto and I move next to them to learn from them. They correct me, guide me, and support me. This isn’t as chaotic as before. This routine isn’t cruel, selfish, or meaningless. We have a shared calling in common, a unifying purpose, and a desire to work together not for our own end, but the communal end. We extend helping hands to one another and to anyone who is willing to let us show them love. After so much searching, I am finally… home.

Intermission

The second act finishes and the intermission curtain falls and I run backstage to change. I shed off the old costume and knowing that I won’t need it anymore; I throw it away. I put on the new clothes which fit me better and seem more consistent with the libretto and choreography. There are a few who had danced alongside me, but now are putting on their old costumes again. I encourage them not to, but to put on the new. Thankfully, some of them listen and put on the new, but others put on the old costume and leave our community.

I’m quite thirsty after the first and second acts. Backstage I see a table spread with healthy foods and drinks. This looks like just what I need to be refreshed for the next act. I see that the table has been prepared by the homely stagehand and he stands behind the table ready to assist anyone who is thirsty and hungry. People look on him in judgment, others in disgust, and walk past his offering.

I stand in front of the table with the man across from me. He tells me to take and eat. I reach down and grab a little bit of food from his hand and after ingesting it, my senses detect that this is a sustenance like no other. He then tells me to take and drink. I take the cup from his hands and drink. The drink moves down the center of my core nourishing both my body and my spirit like I had not anticipated.

I look at my new costume and it is quite exceptional. Clean. I look up at the stagehand and he is pure and holy. He is not homely as I had originally thought. He is unassuming and kind. There is a beauty to him I had not seen before. He is something far more than a stagehand. Ah, he is indeed the Artistic Director. His care for the performers, their nourishment, their understanding of his libretto, and the choreograph he envisions for the performance all point to him being the Artistic Director.

Others come up to the table with me and we talk together with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I look at the Artistic Director and meditate on how unique he is compared to the rest of us. There is a depth to him that I cannot fathom and a presence that I cannot limit to one space or time. He is able to unite all of us at the table in an inexplicable way. We invite others to join us at the table and some do. Others look longingly at our fellowship and communion, but are pulled away by other interests. While yet others look on us with disdain.

Act 3

The music begins to play and it is time to get back on stage, though I would have preferred to stay with my new family forever at that table communing with the Artistic Director and discussing his choreograph for the libretto. However, we know that we need to be with the people and help others and lead them lovingly towards the Artistic Director. They have to know how wonderful he is. How wonderful this is.

As we rush towards the stage, I notice that there are some who are forgotten, hurting, and broken in the wings. Many people passing by refuse to look their way as if their suffering was a disruption to their plans or an inconvenience to their internal thought processes. My conscience is pricked as I walk past them and I turn round. Their eyes look up and lock with mine and I see a beauty in their faces beneath the pain. I reach out to help, to hold a hand, to hug, and to listen. I soon realize that this is far bigger than me and I tell my new community and each of us in our own way attempt to lift one another up so that we can walk into the forgiving light on stage.

As I walk onto the lit stage, this time it feels different as I move. Is it me or is it everyone else? They are looking at me curiously. Am I dancing unusually? Well, I am trying to be more conscious of myself and others. I am trying to take every thought captive. I am trying to be more collaborative with the others since they taught me the traditional choreography. I am trying to recall the theme of the libretto. But why is it so offensive to everyone else? Why is this dance of love and kindness such a crime?

Another dancer’s foot stuck out ahead of mine whether intentionally or unintentionally I do not know, but I trip and my body’s weight shift forward and I feel the momentum pushing me downwards into a fall. My hands instinctively reach out to break my fall and the Artistic Director catches me by the arm in a swoop and continues to swing me back up to my feet. It was as if this had already been written into the dance composition. How is he unexpectedly present everywhere? How did he know I was going to fall? How did he know I needed him during a time of suffering? Why is he on stage? Why is he showing me love and grace, to me of all people? My eyes look on him devotedly and in a moment, he is obscured from my sight in the whirlwind of other performers.

I dance boldly now with careful steps, but move to the music with those of my community according to what we had learned. It is masterly. It is graceful and appears to me like the kingdom of heaven has come to earth. We help each other move closer to the vision that the Artistic Director has in mind for us. It’s not just about me on the stage or my performance, but we are working together to lead each other into the likeness of the Artistic Director and his vision for our performance. We are trying to be like him. We are trying to lead others to the knowledge of who the stagehand really is, his presence, his mercy, his humility, his love, his purpose for us. Surely there is nowhere else I want to be, but right here with everyone else and striving to dance closer and closer to the Artistic Director.

And then suddenly, and to my astonishment, I see the curtain fall. Wait, I haven’t finished my third act. There is still another act. I have more to do. Why is the curtain down now?

Act 4

Surprised by the curtain falling abruptly in the third act, I walk to the downstage center to face where the audience will be so that when the curtain call happens, I will be ready to take a bow and receive their applause. My chest heaves as I inhale and exhale deeply and wait for the others to join me at my side. From the corner of my eye I see we are being moved into two groups. While I look to discern this sorting, I’m unaware that my foot is on the edge of the curtain and then the curtain calls. I lose my balance and try to catch myself, but end up falling to my knees. I look up to see the crowd’s reaction, but there is no one in the audience. Except one.

It is the man I once thought homely, but have come to regard as beautiful. It is the man I had once thought a lowly stagehand, but have come to know him as the Artistic Director. My eyes have been opened and I see him… and he is… strikingly majestic. He is glorious. He sits looking at me from the center of the orchestra confident, peaceful, authoritative, holy, innocent, unstained, separate, and exalted. But words are failing me and cannot even begin to describe Him. He is observant of all that has happened. This whole time I thought I was performing for everyone else, but had it just been for him? The stage lights are not pointing towards me or the stage, but are pointing towards him. The focus of my eyes, my heart, and my mind are on him. I can look nowhere else. There is no shadow in him because he is illuminating.

Others kneel before the Artistic Director as I do, but my concentration is not on them. My thoughts are not on them. Nor is their attention turned towards me because they are fully invested in their moment with him. In this timeless, uninterrupted event, for me it is only me and the Artistic Director.

He sees all. He sees every act of unkindness, every grievous choice, every resistance to his help, every submission to his will, every act of charity, simply everything. I am fully revealed before him like a clear glass with the thoughts, words, and actions of my life pouring in as either pure or murky water before him.

Did I lead others to the Artistic Director during my performance or did I hinder them from coming to him? Was this entire performance merely an audition for the greater performance yet to come? And here he is as the decision maker. Will he wave me away, will he clap, will he speak? I know that in whatever he says, he will be just when he speaks and blameless when he judges. Here I am with him and he with me. His ineffable countenance is resolute, his eyes show compassion, and I hope for mercy in his words. Then his lips part to speak…