The following is from 2015. I don't think that I could ever really feel at home in....polite society....the past is just too ingrained....but wonder of wonders....the most marvelous thing happens when one is born again....because every possibly veneer dissolves or dissipates in the full-orbed gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing can invade the oneness that all believers have in Jesus Christ. Oh it may not look that way at times....but you only see that if you take your eyes off of Christ....which we do of course....but the moment that our eyes return to Him.....we are reassured.
Aah the theatre! I took an acting class at Pitt in the early 70s and the first half of it was going well. I worked on one scene, not even a scene but a couple of lines, for we all had lines from different plays. I was Paul Bratter from Barefoot In The Park. I stood on a chair and said good-bye to a hole in the skylight. I thought I had great potential for it's not easy talking to a hole in a skylight. Alas, we moved quickly on to improvisational techniques. I was to be a snake on the ground. I was a terrible snake for I had not any idea as to how to slither. My ego was crushed and I dropped the class. Too bad...I coulda been a contender.
I enjoyed the plays at Pitt's Stephen Foster Memorial Theater and once took a young lady from the Theater Arts Department....(my instructor in one of the theater classes actually)....out to dinner where we met some of her friends at the restaurant. I felt totally out of place in the conversation. We were so different. I felt that they snickered at this older student, and army veteran in a field jacket. (it wasn't a popular resume at the time) I felt that way a little bit tonight even though my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed My Fair Lady at Pittsburgh's O'Reilly Theater in the Cultural District. I'm sure that it was all in my head for I had on a tie and sweater and aside from the pipe and tobacco sticking out of my worn leather coat and the bright yellow, somewhat dirty, ball cap in my hand with specialdogg.blogspot.com embroidered on it, I almost fit in. No, I think that it was the money aspect for these were expensive seats, given in generosity to us from friends, and I'm sure that the folks that support the theater are of the very upper crust. I tried not to move during the performance for fear that it would be found out that a street person had found his way in. I had a coughing spell for about a minute and saw myself as a wastrel imposing his dodgy behavior on the sanctity of an intimate setting of the performing arts. In short, I was Eliza Doolittle trying to be cultured while at the races only to blow my cover because of a tickle in the throat. Yes, I was indeed Eliza, only I could never in a million years pull off what she did at the Grand Ball.
Untrained eye for the theater though I might have, I thought the play and the actors and the theater were great. There was one scene...one scene where I felt as if I were on the stage. George Bernard Shaw, the author of Pygmalion, aka My Fair Lady, was an atheist and a radical Socialist and he surely was as far away in his intent from my interpretation as Barack Obama is from a constitutional lawyer, but the emotion is the same. Eliza had, for the first time, pronounced one of Henry Higgins phonetic tests correctly....the...Rain...in...Spain...stays mainly....in the plain. She was free, no longer doomed forever to be an uncultured flower girl. She had pronounced something purely. She had partaken of the grace of civilized society. She had hope. It was three in the morning and the governess of the home urged her to get some sleep but the thrill of it had set her to dancing and singing around the room....as a lady....a lady. I'm reminded here of the stories told about Sarah Edwards, wife of the great American theologian Jonathan Edwards, upon experiencing the majesties of Christ. She too could have.....praised her Savior.... all night long! I'm reminded also of my own epiphany many years ago at finding that the most undeserving creature of all was given clean clothes to wear and words of the most profound eloquence to say....."To Him (Jesus) be...blessing....and honor...and glory...and might...forever and ever!" That feeling never leaves one unless one voluntarily bids it adieu.
I took liberties in this post, for effect, as to people's positions in life, only to emphasize here that....to the one who calls Jesus their Lord and Savior, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for (all) are one in Christ Jesus."
