Springing Into Action
The school is break, and this year, it feels like spring. I hear birds tweeting outside where the daffodils have recently raised their yellow heads and the trees have begin to bud and blossom. Yes, it did snow in the Baltimore area last night, but I still had to mow the grass this afternoon, and the windows on my house are open as I type this. It is lovely having more daylight.
I have been occupying my time away from school writing up a list of all the tasks for which the school principal is responsible in hope that the next person to occupy that position will have a better idea of what needs to be done than I did when I took the job seven years ago. I've also been doing some reading, watching some Korean television shows, working on details related to next month's high school banquet, and helping backstage at the church Easter play, Dead or Alive, which I wrote last year.
Whenever I go back and read something I wrote in the past, I wonder how I did it, where the words came from. I enjoy hearing the words of the play interpreted by the actors. Sometimes the actors say the lines just as I imagined them and other times they say them in ways I never could have imagined. I know that when I am writing play dialogue, I am playing all the roles inside my head. Fortunately for the audience, I am not playing all the roles on stage, because more gifted souls than I are breathing new life into the words and creating relationships onstage that transfer and relate to the people sitting out there in the dark, watching and listening. This year, knowing that I may not be part of the Easter play process next year, makes my experience different from times past. Just as I know that God has prepared a person to assume my roll in the school, I am realizing that someone, perhaps someone in this year's play, will be taking on my part in the creation of next year's Easter play. I'm hoping that maybe I will be given an opportunity to write an new script, but maybe God has a new talent waiting in the wings to do that.
I think I have a couple more chapel skits to write before the school year ends. I know that next week's chapel will finish our current focus on the godly character trait of courage and that I will need to have a fresh script for that. I also know that I am going to have to write a final script to end the school year. That will be special. In between, I think I am going to go back to old scripts and pull out some favorites and re-perform them with the students.
Gary King, the character I play in the chapel skits, may be going with me to Korea, or he could stay here in Baltimore for someone else to play. For those of you unfamiliar with Gary, he is an 8-year-old boy with a propensity for thinking and doing ridiculous things, usually because he misunderstands or is misguided. Every one of his antics is related somehow to a verse of the week, and he learns, usually by trial and error, some biblical truth. He is quite gullible and often annoying to his peers who are played by students that I choose each week to act in the skits. Gary has a morbid fear of gummy worms which he believes turn into baby anacondas if they get wet. Silly, I know, but Gary has gotten a lot of laughs from this phobia.
Gary got his name from a real person, a Korean television personality that I have enjoyed watching on a funny variety/reality show called Running Man. Gary's brothers and sister also take their nicknames from other people on that show who have the same nicknames - Haha, Ace, and Tiger. Haha, played by Mr. Mike Colby, GGCA's high school history teacher, is Gary's older brother in the skits who plays tricks on Gary. He is the family comedian. Ace, played by former GGCA's school secretary, Mrs. Jen Lynch, is the family brain who knows everything and gets high grades in school. Tiger, played by GGCA's school manager and registrar, Mr. Nathan McFarland, is the family jock who is good at every sport. Gary is the family misfit who is not popular for any reason that his siblings are. In fact, Gary is mostly avoided by the other students in his school because they think he is weird and have nicknamed him S'Gary, because he does strange things. I think that maybe all of us have felt like Gary during our childhood for various reasons, wondering how we will ever fit in or measure up, hoping for someone to love us just as we are, and doing dumb things from time to time to try and make people like us. The children love Gary, and I hope that they are learning that Christ loves us all and that we are to love one another as Christ loves us; because He has accepted us, we can accept ourselves and others.
Writing this has reminded me that I ought to spend some time getting next week's skit ready. Maybe that is what I will be doing Friday. Tomorrow I will be doing some math tutoring. Algebra 1, here we come!
It's time to go put on a red shirt and khaki pants and head down to the church to sing on the worship team. After June, who will be doing that in my place? God is preparing someone for that too. I wonder what God is planning for me to do? All He's told me thus far is, "Go." I feel like those Galileans who were told to drop their fishing nets and follow Jesus. They did it, so it can be done.
I have been occupying my time away from school writing up a list of all the tasks for which the school principal is responsible in hope that the next person to occupy that position will have a better idea of what needs to be done than I did when I took the job seven years ago. I've also been doing some reading, watching some Korean television shows, working on details related to next month's high school banquet, and helping backstage at the church Easter play, Dead or Alive, which I wrote last year.
Whenever I go back and read something I wrote in the past, I wonder how I did it, where the words came from. I enjoy hearing the words of the play interpreted by the actors. Sometimes the actors say the lines just as I imagined them and other times they say them in ways I never could have imagined. I know that when I am writing play dialogue, I am playing all the roles inside my head. Fortunately for the audience, I am not playing all the roles on stage, because more gifted souls than I are breathing new life into the words and creating relationships onstage that transfer and relate to the people sitting out there in the dark, watching and listening. This year, knowing that I may not be part of the Easter play process next year, makes my experience different from times past. Just as I know that God has prepared a person to assume my roll in the school, I am realizing that someone, perhaps someone in this year's play, will be taking on my part in the creation of next year's Easter play. I'm hoping that maybe I will be given an opportunity to write an new script, but maybe God has a new talent waiting in the wings to do that.
I think I have a couple more chapel skits to write before the school year ends. I know that next week's chapel will finish our current focus on the godly character trait of courage and that I will need to have a fresh script for that. I also know that I am going to have to write a final script to end the school year. That will be special. In between, I think I am going to go back to old scripts and pull out some favorites and re-perform them with the students.
Gary King, the character I play in the chapel skits, may be going with me to Korea, or he could stay here in Baltimore for someone else to play. For those of you unfamiliar with Gary, he is an 8-year-old boy with a propensity for thinking and doing ridiculous things, usually because he misunderstands or is misguided. Every one of his antics is related somehow to a verse of the week, and he learns, usually by trial and error, some biblical truth. He is quite gullible and often annoying to his peers who are played by students that I choose each week to act in the skits. Gary has a morbid fear of gummy worms which he believes turn into baby anacondas if they get wet. Silly, I know, but Gary has gotten a lot of laughs from this phobia.
Gary got his name from a real person, a Korean television personality that I have enjoyed watching on a funny variety/reality show called Running Man. Gary's brothers and sister also take their nicknames from other people on that show who have the same nicknames - Haha, Ace, and Tiger. Haha, played by Mr. Mike Colby, GGCA's high school history teacher, is Gary's older brother in the skits who plays tricks on Gary. He is the family comedian. Ace, played by former GGCA's school secretary, Mrs. Jen Lynch, is the family brain who knows everything and gets high grades in school. Tiger, played by GGCA's school manager and registrar, Mr. Nathan McFarland, is the family jock who is good at every sport. Gary is the family misfit who is not popular for any reason that his siblings are. In fact, Gary is mostly avoided by the other students in his school because they think he is weird and have nicknamed him S'Gary, because he does strange things. I think that maybe all of us have felt like Gary during our childhood for various reasons, wondering how we will ever fit in or measure up, hoping for someone to love us just as we are, and doing dumb things from time to time to try and make people like us. The children love Gary, and I hope that they are learning that Christ loves us all and that we are to love one another as Christ loves us; because He has accepted us, we can accept ourselves and others.
Writing this has reminded me that I ought to spend some time getting next week's skit ready. Maybe that is what I will be doing Friday. Tomorrow I will be doing some math tutoring. Algebra 1, here we come!
It's time to go put on a red shirt and khaki pants and head down to the church to sing on the worship team. After June, who will be doing that in my place? God is preparing someone for that too. I wonder what God is planning for me to do? All He's told me thus far is, "Go." I feel like those Galileans who were told to drop their fishing nets and follow Jesus. They did it, so it can be done.
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