Morning Thanks--Last night's performance

I know it's awkward of me to say it, but I have had far more than my share of successes as a performer in my three-score-and-ten. After helping Diet Eman tell her story in print (Things We Couldn't Say), I created a readers theater presentation out of all that courage and perseverance, a presentation that toured widely in 1995, fifty years after the liberation of the camps in World War II.

After writing Our Family Album, a book about the Christian Reformed Church, I thought I could do the same thing--and did, bringing that story to the stage, the story of the denomination of which I've been a part ever since I was born--and before, if I calculate time by one of the CRC's staid old doctrines, the doctrine of "the covenant." 

I created a show for the 50th anniversary of Dordt College (now University) that also toured widely and featured videoed stories of eight specially chosen alums. I've read my own stories time and time again, throughout the U.S. and Canada. 

If my eyes and heart can be trusted, then I'll hazard this judgement: a ton of those readings and performances were greatly successful. If I sound like I'm tooting my own horn, I guess I am. I'm sorry. At 71 years old, I don't think it's a sin to do a little self-reflection.

I say all of that for a reason. Last night before a crowd in our church, five readers and I staged an unique performance that, if my instincts can be trusted, was wonderfully received (emphasis on wonder).   

A friend of mine from Vermont told me that I'd like Benjamin Myers' book of poems, Black Sunday, a series of sonnets (all all things!) that tell stories of the Dust Bowl, right there in "no man's land," a triangle of horrors cut from Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, where that terrible Sabbath day will never be forgotten. 

I took Myers's book of poems from the package and read it, cover to cover, the only time in my life I've ever done that with any book. That recommendation was true. The stories Myers tells are heartfelt alive, brittle with the kind of electrical charge that arose from all that dust. To me, remembrances of the people who speak in that book were beautiful, but dark--very dark, as was the time. Many thousands left--Steinbeck tells their stories. 

I sent out a few emails to people I know to tell them I thought Black Sunday was an amazing work, powerfully moving, dark as a dust cloud but never quite hopeless against the wide Great Plains sky, then decided to try it, to put it up on stage for people to hear and see.

We planted an old hymn right in the middle of the performance, a hymn begun by a school teacher, who simply starts, wearily, to sing the first quiet verse of "Leaning on the Everylasting Arms." For a moment, she's all by herself, singing quietly, thoughtfully, to no one but herself. She's trying to raise some hope. On the chorus the rest of us on stage joined her, in a testimony that's also inescapably a lament. 

We'd recruited a pair of wonderful singers. When they joined in, the crowd began to understand that they too could help, all of it a capella. Something happened just then: somewhere in the back, people stood to sing with her, with us. Slowly, the rest of the crowd got to their feet as well. No one asked them to rise, no one gave any sign that we wanted them on their feet. No one up front ever thought they would, but on their own they did--they got to their feet as if helping the schoolteacher with the courage to face the deprivations of her life in "no man's land."

That moment was almost heavenly. To me at least it signified that those who attended were on a perfect pitch with the emotional heart of the poems the cast were reading. The crowd became a part of the story. I've experienced far more than my share of beautiful moments in dramatic performances, but this one was extraordinary, and pure blessing. 

On the way out, as the cast walked through the crowd, a boy, a little boy, looked at the schoolteacher, and gave her a thumbs up as if to say he'd loved it. I've had standing ovations that weren't as precious. 

We live in a culture that doesn't really value history much. The great American Dream cares not a lick for yesterday. When people lose those yesterdays, we call the condition senility. Black Sunday is a chapter in our history we forget at our jeopardy. 

The great value of history, someone said, is that it tells us what we've done and therefore what we are.

This morning I'm thankful for Benjamin Myers wonderful book, for our attempt to put it on stage, and for the blessings which understanding ourselves affords.
_________________________ 
Listen to a Small Wonder from KWIT, public radio in Sioux City, Iowa, a short essay about the Dust Bowl and Benjamin Myers's book.