posting the cast list
As a college theatre major, I had to do quite a bit of auditioning: cold readings, prepared monologues, call-backs when there were other actresses in the running for the same role. And there was that one exhilarating, excruciating moment when all the auditioning was over, and we waited for the cast list to be posted. Huddled by the bulletin board backstage at the appointed time with so many other hopefuls, I recall someone pinning up the list and running for her life, avoiding the inevitable tears mingled with squeals of delight.
There are so many life lessons from my time studying theatre that had nothing to do with theatre at all. And one lesson that I had to learn time and again was that once the cast list was posted, the work had just begun. If I got a role there would be rehearsals, memorizing, taking criticism, sweating out reviews. And if I didn’t get the role, I still had a part to play in mounting the production: building sets, finding props, running sound or lights, or writing press releases. I realized that disappointment and elation are both part of life’s equation, and that both would propel me into more effort and more commitment.
Last week was rough as we waited for the results of an exhausting election season. When I rose in the wee hours of election night, restless and wearied by waiting, I was grieved by how bitterly divided our nation seemed to be. I opened the Bible and read in Luke 13:10-17 about “a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.” (verse 11). Talk about waiting! The thought came to me that we cannot fully straighten ourselves from our bent and disabling ways. We can’t even agree about what our national disabilities are! But Jesus wants to bring healing to us, just as he did to that woman.
Mark Turner of Horizon Gate Ministry wrote last week: “I know there are people on both sides of the American presidential race who believe zealously that God is on their side. So, if your side loses, will God lose? Will there then be no God with whom you can humbly walk? Maybe the ‘God on your side’ has actually been something else.” During the days of waiting I needed to ask these questions of myself. And I ask them of you.
While praying, my spirit made a sudden shift. It occurred to me that half of the country does see our nation’s disabilities as I do. And while my human heart desires power, I would be called to keep working, to keep pressing on, whether my candidate was voted into power or wasn’t. For it is the meek and the peacemakers that Jesus named as “blessed”.
In my immature college days, I felt like being cast was the achievement. But as in putting on a play, the higher callings of justice and equal opportunity require work…collaborative work. The nobler goals are worth pursuing, either with power or speaking truth to power. I know that I have to commit myself to pressing on. I hope you agree that whether your candidate won or lost, the work begins now.
Love, Liz
“Shake the dust off of your feet, don’t look back.
Nothing now can hold you down, nothing that you lack...
Well I'm pressing on. Yes, I'm pressing on.
Well I'm pressing on to the higher calling of my Lord." Bob Dylan
