I hadn’t been to  the theatre  in more years than I can remember… last week’s visit to Gordon’s production about  Pakistan/Afghanistan  brought up more than what I was rattling on about in my posting yesterday… it brought me back to the world of  Theatre  that was such a major part of my life  for over 15 years…  the thoughts kept pouring in… thoughts about why I was involved in theatre to begin with… why I loved it so much… what I saw about all that, during the first two years after my collision with God.

I saw that Theatre was the personification of everything that my natural man craved… the applause… the recognition… the power over others (especially those in the audience)… and the way all that built me up to thinking much more highly of myself than I ought…. prideful… arrogant… manipulative…  It was an easy switch to the pulpit where I could get all that recognition, applause, power, etc… and be  spiritual  about it…  I was yet another actor/performer/comic who wasn’t just quite good enough to be a  professional….. that ended up becoming a preacher.

The best roles were always these crazy messed up people like Stanley Kowalski… the total hedonist… to play Stanley I needed to become  the total hedonist... I was very good at that…  good plays were always about messed up lives…. hopelessness… no purpose or meaning to life… abuse on every level.. using others to get what I wanted… opportunism on every level… the crazier the lives, the better the play… no answers for anyone… just more questions.

Everything had changed for  me… God took away my  foul mouth  … it was hard to say all those 4-letter words…  life had meaning, purpose, reality, love, hope…. I couldn’t present the hopelessness projected in virtually every play.  I couldn’t  pretend to love my leading lady… nor try to seduce her… I had become a one woman man.  I couldn’t use people for my own ends any more… and little by little I saw that I was substituting the pulpit for all that other stuff that the Lord was slowly putting to death… my natural man was no longer in charge of everything.

All that kind of stuff (on top of finally seeing the horror of what I was doing to people in our church) was all part of my never wanting to be in a pulpit again… and… the thoughts… the thoughts… they just kept on rolling thru… there was Philipus Minimus Maximus… the Thinker….  hmmmm…  wonder what Rodan would think about all that…..  🙂