Jerry and I went to a funeral yesterday for the mother of a dear friend. While the friend isn’t particularly religious, the mother was, so the clergy was a Southern Baptist preacher.
It was all smiles and praising, and while he was smiling and praising he started talking about the second coming. My conscious brain shut completely off at that point and I started making a grocery list in my head. Jerry needs new shampoo, we’re out of mayonnaise, I really need to get some more bread, and I think the girls are out of apple juice. I came back to reality for a moment, and he was still talking about the Rapture so I wandered off to think about quilts for a while…
I much prefer the casual approach of the Episcopal church when it comes to this stuff. I don’t think I could sit in church every Sunday and listen to the idea that we’re just waiting and waiting and waiting until the second coming, and how nothing else matters.
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I was part of the Southern Baptist church for 24 years and don’t remember a whole lot of rapture talk. Every once in a while the pastor would do a whole sermon series on it, but it definitely was not an every Sunday kind of thing. Although I’ve attended my share of Baptist funerals where it was mentioned…however EVERY Assembly of God service I’ve ever been to has been all about the second coming.
Can’t we all just get along? Heh heh!
PS Did you ever participate in the Noah Awards at TH? Just curious…knowing your stance on Wings I wondered how you felt about them.
E, you hit on why I visited a bunch of ’em and never joined as a teen. I remember attending one church several times with a good friend of mine, and when I missed a week, the pastor came and found me and asked why. I said, “Well, you were gonna preach about those of us sinners who weren’t here anyway.. why would I get up early to feel bad?”
I have baptist grandparents and pentecostal grandparents. I just don’t go to church. God is everywhere…right?
Jo — I’ve never even heard of the Noah awards.
I find awards for community theatre silly, to be honest. I won one when I was in 6th grade, and it completely skewed my self-image, and not in a good way. I only won it because I was the only contender for that particular award! But don’t tell my ego that — I was convinced I was a shoe-in for every part I tried out for after that. Right as I hit the awkward pre-teen totally uncastable age. And I won Best Actress for HLT when I was 22, which was nice. I still have it, but it embarrasses me, really. I’ll keep it because I’ve heard that over the years the spring on the trophy uncoils, and I kinda want to see that. But I don’t hold much stock in the award itself. I didn’t even go to the ceremony.
If adults want to do meaningless awards, it’s fine with me, I guess. I just don’t want to participate or compete as a judge, actor, or any sort of tech person. If/when I ever get back into community theatre, the awards will be the absolute last thing on my mind.
But by all means, please leave the kids out of the awards completely. It’s not good for them, putting value and worth on things that don’t deserve it. I mean really — how impartial can judges be if they’re appointed by the organizations being judged? It’s just silly.
I’m glad you say they’re the last thing on your mind. Lots of people in community theatre definitely don’t have that point of view…which is why I use the term “community” very loosely…
In fact, if I recall, we were forbid to talk about them on at least two shows I’ve done at Fantasy, including “Just-So…”
I knew your opinion on Wings. I didn’t know if you’d ever been around for the Noah Awards and was just curious. I think all of them are a waste of time and money. Period. Especially when the judging can tend (as in Wings last year) to be TOTALLY skewed and only ends up making people feel bad.
I didn’t forbid discussion of Wings, I just said I didn’t personally want to hear about it because that’s not why we were doing the show in the first place.
And I think it made for a better show, because the pressure wasn’t there.
I didn’t make the same request during Ugly Duckling, and I remember quite a few of my cast members completely freaking out when a teenager sat in the front row with a clipboard and wrote on it for the entire first half. Turns out he was just doodling because he didn’t want to be there, but the little kids in the show were SURE he was a judge taking notes about their performances. That is exactly what I dislike about the whole judging process, because it sucked the joy right out of that performance for those kids, and they were all distracted. 🙁
It did make for a better show, among many other things. Like the fact that the whole experience was about doing something more than just theater…we were pushing the envelope.
I remember that performance of Duckling/Frog. I think that’s when my distaste became total dislike.
Yeah, Southern Baptist and me…we don’t mix. I MUCH prefer my church. I LOVE it. I love that we focus on the NOW. And as for community theatre awards….fun for the adults, leave the kids out. I totally agree with that. It’s nice to be recognized for good work, on a community level, or professional level, but my feeling is that the community theatre awards are more politically driven than rightfully given.
It’s funny, because while sitting at gatherings like this I can’t help but convert it all to be more theatre-like in my head. I mean, this ceremony did include a big curtain closing to give the family some alone time at the casket, but MY funeral will also have pyro and people flying in.
And the lights going out with people still onstage…
“Look! The sun went out!”