Gotthammer: Mike Perschon's Online Asylum

Rough Creatures - A Play for Advent, Scene 7

2011-12-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

"Rough Creatures" was written between 2002 and 2005 - I don't really remember the exact date. I just recall trying to get it ready for rehearsals, and then being unable to launch the production due to casting difficulties. Feel free to use it however you can - it's in fragments, but I think the pieces add up to something usable, or at the very least, intelligible.

Another time, another place. It is a land ravaged by perpetual winter; no one can recall how the winter began, if it was by the weapons of power which the world’s leaders had forged, or if it were an act of God, a meteor striking the earth and forcing everything underground. With time, small settlements have grown up under the ice and snow as Life finds a way through the grey death. Gamin Sanctuary is one such settlement, built within the basement levels of some once-great building. Nestled at the edge of the settlement, in all that remains above ground is the Inn, a place for travelers’ mad enough to traverse the ice wastes to stop, and for denizens of Gamin Sanctuary to come for a drink, a game of cards or stones, or more intimate pursuits.

CAST

The Abbess – a strong, mature middle-aged woman who runs the Inn.

Tinker – a man of unknown age (older than mid-20’s) who roams the ice wasteland looking for items of value to trade

Simeon – a older Jewish man who lives at the Inn, hoping for the coming of the Messiah.

Rachel – Simeon’s eldest daughter – a whore

Sarah – Simeon’s younger daughter – a whore

Fen, the Matchstick Girl – the Abbess’ ‘daughter’.

Anno – The Abess’ husband

Woman – a traveler who comes upon the Inn in labor

Man – a traveler, the Woman’s companion

Act 3

Scene 5

(LIGHTS UP on SIMEON and ESTHER playing chess; ABBESS is holding the child in her arms, cooing and rocking her. RACHEL looks at the child over ABBESS’ shoulder. FEN sits at the table, playing with the nativity figures.)

RACHEL: Can I hold her now?

ABBESS: You’ll have plenty of time for holding this baby when Anno gets you to the city.

RACHEL: You’re sure you won’t come?

ABBESS: We’ve been through this too many times already. Just let it be Rachel.

ESTHER: Well, it is kind of you and Anno to help us to get there.

ABBESS: It’s not too much trouble. Most of your luggage went with your fiancés (she raises her eyebrows suggestively at this word) so taking what you have left with the dogs isn’t too much work. Besides, a blind man could find his way to the new city with the trail all those people left behind.

ESTHER: Checkmate.

SIMEON: You’ve been practicing! You were never this good when I was teaching you. Who have you been playing against? (He looks accusingly at RACHEL who shrugs her shoulders. FEN giggles and sort of hides in her Christmas book. SIMEON pulls down the cover.) I should’ve known! A conspiracy! (He stands up and walks over to ABBESS and the child.) Aren’t you beautiful. You are the hope of all the people who have gone onto the city. You are the one they are talking about—the first new child of the City of God!

ABBESS: But she wasn’t born in the New City. She was born here, in my inn.

SIMEON: That’s true, but who wants to believe the first child born after the plague was born in an inn?

FEN: Just like baby Jesus.

SIMEON: What?

FEN: Jesus--the baby in the story. He wasn’t even born in an inn, just a shelter, where the animals were kept. And he was the Messiah.

SIMEON: I’ve told you already Fen, that story is not from the Torah—

FEN: I think it’s true all the same.

SIMEON: The Messiah is a king, not the son of a peasant girl.

FEN: Moses was really the son of a slave—and he rescued the people from being slaves.

SIMEON: Yes but that’s different.

ABBESS: How?

SIMEON: Because it’s different. I don’t know how.

ABBESS: Well, someone once told me that sometimes life isn’t what we see, it’s what we believe. Well, sometimes life is just what we see. And today I saw hope born here in this Inn. Not in your magical City. And isn’t that what the Messiah was to bring? Hope? Light in the darkness?

SIMEON: “From the lips of children—you have ordained praise.” Let me not be too set in my ways oh Lord. (He looks at FEN.) You are right Fen. All these years you have listened to me, and in the end saw what I could not. And what is good enough for Messiah is good enough for this little one.

RACHEL: She needs a name.

ABBESS: Hope.

RACHEL: Not the name I’d have expected coming from you Abbess.

ABBESS: Well I’m full of surprises today.

(ANNO enters with several packs and lugs them toward the stairs.)

SIMEON: Where are you off to?

(ANNO looks at SIMEON, confused. Then he looks to ABBESS for an explanation.)

ABBESS: I hadn’t told them yet.

RACHEL: Told us what?

ANNO: We’re going to the City with you.

(ESTHER and RACHEL give excited squeals and hug ABBESS. SIMEON smiles.)

ESTHER: So you were lying!

ABBESS: Not entirely—Anno is holding me to going, like I asked him. But I still have one foot stuck in the door here.

RACHEL: What made you change your mind?

ABBESS: Hope.

RACHEL: Abbess, I told you I’d take good care…

ABBESS: Not the baby. I started hoping for…something else, anything else, more than just surviving.

ANNO: And if you all knew how difficult it was for her to say that…

ABBESS: Get on with your packing! We’ve got a fair bit more to load on the sled.

ANNO: Come give me a hand, Fen?

FEN: Sure.

(ANNO heads up the stairs while FEN gets up from the table and heads for the landing. ANNO opens the door to the outside from offstage, and a bright light shines down on FEN. She screams.)

ABBESS: Fen! Are you all right?

FEN: (shielding her eyes) What is it?

ABBESS: I don’t know. Anno! Anno!

ANNO: (offstage) I’m all right! (Footsteps on the stairs, Anno reenters onto the landing) You’ll never believe it…the clouds have broken.

ABBESS: My God…

FEN: What does that mean mama?

ABBESS: It means that light…it’s the sun. (She looks down at the baby cradled in her arms.) You really did make it to see the dawn.

ANNO: It’s sitting in the sky over top of the line of tracks the people left going to the City. You can see them all, but it’s so bright…the snow, it’s all so bright. It’s like the whole world’s turned pure white.

SIMEON: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

FEN: The sun is in the direction of the city?

ANNO: Yes, to the West.

FEN: Bethlehem. We’re going to Bethlehem.

(LIGHTS DOWN.)

Rough Creatures: A Play for Advent, Scene 6

2011-12-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Abbess – a strong, mature middle-aged woman who runs the Inn.

Tinker – a man of unknown age (older than mid-20’s) who roams the ice wasteland looking for items of value to trade

Simeon – a older Jewish man who lives at the Inn, hoping for the coming of the Messiah.

Rachel – Simeon’s eldest daughter – a whore

Sarah – Simeon’s younger daughter – a whore

Fen, the Matchstick Girl – the Abbess’ ‘daughter’.

Anno – The Abess’ husband

Woman – a traveler who comes upon the Inn in labor

Man – a traveler, the Woman’s companion

Act 3

Scene 5

(LIGHTS UP. The room is empty. The chessboard is abandoned, the game not complete. SIMEON and RACHEL must have given up on the game. ABBESS enters from the kitchen, holding the baby in her arms, singing a lullaby. ANNO enters from the landing, takes off his jacket and pours himself some coffee. He sits down at the table.)

ANNO: How is she?

ABBESS: A healthy baby girl from what I’ve seen so far. I think she’s going to make it.

ANNO: Last night you didn’t seem so sure.

ABBESS: Last night I didn’t have any hope. (She is looking at ANNO, her eyes smiling. ANNO realizes the change, and that he was part of it.)

ANNO: I’m sorry I was so harsh.

ABBESS: No, I needed it. You know it takes a sharp pick to cut through hard ice.

ANNO: You were pretty hard.

ABBESS: I was pretty icy.

ANNO: Nothing like a new baby to bring a thaw.

ABBESS: Especially this one. She’s going to be fine, (looks at sleeping child) aren’t you?

ANNO: And what if she isn’t?

ABBESS: Then we’ll have to hope the next one is.

ANNO: Are you just saying that?

ABBESS: Yes…and no. I’m not too good at this hope thing Anno, we’ll have to take it all one step at a time. But I sure want her to live. Only now I understand that I don’t have to die a little bit every time one of these little ones doesn’t make it.

ANNO: I forgot to ask—the father, will he be taking care of her?

ABBESS: That boy who came with the girl? Not her husband. He lived in the same settlement as her. She got left behind because she was a whore. I guess Southtown got self-righteous when they headed for the new city.

ANNO: The new city’ll have whores. All places do.

ABBESS: You and I know that, but you know people. Especially when they’re moving to the ‘city of God.’

ANNO: So she’s got no family at all.

ABBESS: She has us. Rachel mentioned last night she wouldn’t mind taking her as her own, seeing as she’s been unable to have a baby herself.

ANNO: Rachel’s going to the city with that young man she met.

ABBESS: She is.

ANNO: That baby won’t be ready to go for at least a month or two.

ABBESS: Suits me fine. I wouldn’t want to help set everything up anyhow.

ANNO: I’m not sure that would bother Rachel much; she’s never been afraid of hard work, all I’m saying is—

ABBESS: I’m not talking about Rachel. I’m talking about me.

ANNO: But you said we weren’t going—

ABBESS: I know what I said. Now you listen to what I’m saying.

ANNO: I’ll never understand you, ‘Bess.

ABBESS: You don’t have to understand me Anno. Just love me. And help me do this. I’ll need your help, your strength.

ANNO: I always thought you were the strong one.

ABBESS: No, I’m just the loud one. It’s you I lean on for support.

ANNO: I don’t know what you want me to do.

ABBESS: Hold me to this decision. Help me make the journey. And just love me.

ANNO: That I can do…has that child been fed?

ABBESS: She has.

ANNO: Then let’s lay her down for a rest, and I’ll thaw you out some more.

(ABBESS smiles as ANNO places his arm around her and they walk to the kitchen exit. LIGHTS DOWN.)

Rough Creatures: A Play for Advent, Part 5

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Abbess – a strong, mature middle-aged woman who runs the Inn.

Tinker – a man of unknown age (older than mid-20’s) who roams the ice wasteland looking for items of value to trade

Simeon – a older Jewish man who lives at the Inn, hoping for the coming of the Messiah.

Rachel – Simeon’s eldest daughter – a whore

Sarah – Simeon’s younger daughter – a whore

Fen, the Matchstick Girl – the Abbess’ ‘daughter’.

Anno – The Abess’ husband

Woman – a traveler who comes upon the Inn in labor

Man – a traveler, the Woman’s companion

Act 3

Scene 3

(The music begins to fade out, and the Lights Fade Up. ANNO stands at the bar, putting things away. ABBESS enters, looking tired and sweaty. The Inn is quiet, and there are a few PATRONS lying about on the floor, sleeping. ABBESS steps over them. )

ANNO: How is she?

ABBESS: (shaking her head) She wasn’t strong enough to bear the baby and live.

ANNO: And the baby?

ABBESS: Alive…for now. But we’ll see. If the child sees the dawn…why the hell do we keep calling it dawn? No one’s seen the Sun for over a hundred years. Might as well call everything night.

ANNO: Hope, ‘Bess. Hope.

ABBESS: My hope died with that girl Anno. This whole lunacy of going to Tinker’s City of God…all these people are doing is trading real estate. Two generations and we’ll all be dead.

ANNO: Maybe they’re healthy babies being born somewhere else in the world.

ABBESS: Yeah, same place Simeon’s Messiah is living no doubt.

ANNO: (After a silence) What if the baby lives?

ABBESS: Hm? What do you mean?

ANNO: Well, if the baby lives, will you have hope?

ABBESS: What the hell are you talking about Anno?

ANNO: I’m talking about you. About us. About everything. Hope isn’t something someone gives you Abbess. It’s something you grab for yourself. If you get everything given to you, then that’s not hope anymore. It’s just life.

ABBESS: You’re trying to talk about things over your head Anno.

ANNO: No I’m not! I’m talking about what I see, and what I know. Look, if you say you’ll only have hope when the sun shows it’s face, then you will never really hope. Because once the sun’s there, you can’t hope for it to be there. It already is.

ABBESS: You’re confusing me. I’m too tired to talk about this.

ANNO: Dammit Abbess, this is important! I’m saying if you don’t have hope now, you never will! You’ll always be hoping for something else! If the baby lives today, you’ll say you won’t have hope until she grows up! And when she grows up, you’ll say you won’t have hope until she finds a husband! And then it’ll be children! And so on! You have to hope today!

ABBESS: Why Anno, what good does it do? Will that baby live just because I hope she will? Will it bring the sun out if I just hope it does? What will it change?

ANNO: You. It’ll change you, ‘Bess.

(ANNO walks out. ABBESS stands, stunned that her husband has spoken with such thoughtfulness and passion. SIMEON enters from the kitchen area.)

SIMEON: I heard shouting. Is everything all right?

ABBESS: Anno was bringing my attention to some things I’ve been overlooking around the Inn.

SIMEON: Strange timing. What was so urgent?

ABBESS: Hope.

(Simeon looks perplexed. He is uncertain of what to say. ABBESS goes to the bar, gets down a bottle of whiskey and pours herself a shot. FEN enters, bleary eyed.)

ABBESS: What are you doing out of bed?

FEN: Papa came to say goodnight to me and woke me up when he kissed me—gave me whisker burn. So I came down to find out how the lady and her baby are.

ABBESS: (Pouring another shot.) The baby is doing pretty good so far sweetheart.

FEN: Is it a girl?

ABBESS: It is. What do you have against boys?

FEN: Nothing. I just would rather have a girl to play with. I’ve seen how the boys play with Rachel and Esther…yuck.

ABBESS: Well, it won’t always seem ‘yuck’ to you, but I’ll thank God for everyday it does.

FEN: How is the baby’s mama?

ABBESS: She died, Fen.

FEN: Just like my mama.

ABBESS: Just like your mama.

(There is a silence.)

FEN: Where do they go?

ABBESS: Who?

FEN: The people—when they die?

ABBESS: Well, we bury the body out in the ice…you know that.

FEN: Where’s the rest of them--the part that talks and laughs?

ABBESS: Well, my mama used to say that part—our spirit, flew up above the clouds to where the sun is.

FEN: Is that true?

ABBESS: Well, I sure hope—(realizing what she’s said, and what it means)—I sure hope so Fen.

FEN: I wonder what the sun looks like.

SIMEON: Well, my father told me the sun is a star, so it would look like the star in the book Tinker brought you I would guess.

FEN: Really? If that’s where we go, then why don’t we all just go to sleep and die so we can go there too?

SIMEON: (thinks for a moment) Well, if we all went off and died, who’d be around to change diapers on all the new babies? Or teach little girls to read?

FEN: That’s true.

ABBESS: Enough questions. Back to bed with you. I have to go relieve Rachel. She’s been watching the baby.

FEN: Simeon can watch me—

ABBESS: I said to bed.

FEN: All right.

ABBESS: (Gives FEN a kiss on the cheek.) Goodnight sweetheart.

FEN: Goodnight. (She turns to SIMEON) Good night, Simeon.

(SIMEON blows her a kiss. FEN catches it and puts it in her pocket, then exits up the stairs.)

ABBESS: Thank you.

SIMEON: For what?

ABBESS: For not correcting me when I told Fen where we go when we die.

SIMEON: Didn’t seem to need correcting.

ABBESS: That’s not what you believe, is it Simeon?

SIMEON: I didn’t believe in a lot of things before Tinker told us about the city. I talked to you about hope a lot Abbess. I didn’t realize how little I had until tonight, when got what I’d been hoping for.

ABBESS: The girls?

(SIMEON nods.)

SIMEON: If I’d really had hope for them, I’d have had faith in them, in their decisions. That God was watching out for them when I wasn’t. And now—how do I become part of their lives again?

ABBESS: That’s what Anno was saying to me. That I say I’ll have hope when something happens, that I really don’t have hope at all.

SIMEON: Wise man.

ABBESS: I need to go spell Rachel off from watching the baby.

SIMEON: Do you think she’ll live?

ABBESS: I hope so. (She smiles.) I guess it does change you.

SIMEON: What was that?

ABBESS: Nothing. Get some sleep Simeon.

SIMEON: Soon.

(She waves as she goes. SIMEON gives her a half-hearted response, and goes to the table. He stares at the chess board. RACHEL enters, looking very tired.)

SIMEON: Rachel.

RACHEL: Simeon.

SIMEON: How is the child?

RACHEL: Sleeping. Just like I’ll be doing soon.

(RACHEL heads for the stairs. SIMEON is obviously in some turmoil. As she reaches the stairs, he speaks up.)

SIMEON: Do you want to play some chess?

RACHEL: (Turns to face SIMEON, a look of slight shock on her face.) So now I’m good enough to play chess with? Now that I have a man who wants to marry me? Is that it?

SIMEON: No—no…that’s not it.

RACHEL: Well if that’s not what it is, then what is it? What’s changed? Two weeks ago I was just a whore, not worth talking to. Now I’m your daughter again. What’s different Simeon?

SIMEON: Do you remember the story of Hosea?

RACHEL: Of course. Didn’t you know? It’s every whore’s favorite book of the Tanakh. (she smirks.)

SIMEON: On my lips I always called you Rachel. But in my heart I called you Lo-Ruhamah…not my loved one. But tonight, when I saw that woman dying while she was giving birth, I looked away and saw you standing beside her, being so strong, so confident, helping Abbess. And I didn’t see a—a whore. I just saw my little girl. And I wanted to tell you that, but I didn’t know how I could after everything I’ve said, and the way I’ve treated you since your mother died. I’ve not been a good father.

RACHEL: You’ve been a terrible father.

SIMEON: I just said that! This isn’t easy you know.

RACHEL: I read that story over and over--Hosea. And I pray to God to bring a man who would be like Hosea, and marry me, even if he knew all the choices I made. But I always said, “It’s impossible. Not even my own father loves me—how could any other man?”

SIMEON: You father was a foolish man.

RACHEL: And that’s different now?

SIMEON: (quoting) I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God.' " Please, Rachel, give me a chance to be your father again.

RACHEL: (thinking a while) No. Not yet. You can work up to that. Let’s just start with that game of chess.

SIMEON: Yes. That would be a good start.

RACHEL: I’ll need some coffee though.

(SIMEON sits down at the table, turns the board to RACHEL. She is pouring coffee for the two of them as the lights FADE DOWN. Music plays again.)

Rough Creatures: A Play for Advent, Part 4

2011-12-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Abbess – a strong, mature middle-aged woman who runs the Inn.

Tinker – a man of unknown age (older than mid-20’s) who roams the ice wasteland looking for items of value to trade

Simeon – a older Jewish man who lives at the Inn, hoping for the coming of the Messiah.

Rachel – Simeon’s eldest daughter – a whore

Sarah – Simeon’s younger daughter – a whore

Fen, the Matchstick Girl – the Abbess’ ‘daughter’.

Anno – The Abess’ husband

Woman – a traveler who comes upon the Inn in labor

Man – a traveler, the Woman’s companion

Act 3

Scene 1

(It has been a month since Tinker left to lead the renovation crew to the fabulous underground city. The Inn is ‘filled’ with customers. The sounds of a sizeable crowd, eating, drinking and enjoying themselves can be heard. ABBESS is at the bar, pouring a tray of drinks for ESTHER.)

ESTHER: How did you manage to have enough food and drink for all these people?

ABBESS: It helps that most of them are eating part of what they paid. A lot of people are slaughtering most of their chickens and goats, rather than transporting all of them.

ESTHER: It’s so exciting! Tomorrow is the beginning of a new life for me!

ABBESS: So it would seem. I saw you talking to that tall dark haired boy from the Southtown group.

ESTHER: (Playing stupid.) So?

ABBESS: Come on now Esther, I’ve seen you soliciting customers a thousand times. I’ve never seen you laughing like you were a new bride to be, just courting. Tell me what he said.

ESTHER: Well, it was his mother took a shine to me first, said I was the healthiest looking thing she’d seen in years, and told her son he should ask me to dance.

ABBESS: So why aren’t you dancing.

ESTHER: I told him I couldn’t, since I was working, and he said I was far too fine to be serving drinks. He told me I ought to have someone serving me drinks.

ABBESS: A real smooth talker.

ESTHER: He seems very nice. And he doesn’t even know what I do…

ABBESS: And he never needs to. You’re leaving for a new life. You can be whoever you want. And that includes deciding to dance with a young man when he asks. Now don’t be stupid. Go on and dance with him. I’ll get Anno to serve the drinks.

ESTHER: Thank you Abbess.

ABBESS: You thank me when he asks you to marry him.

(ESTHER takes off her apron and runs out into the crowd. ANNO strides over, wiping his brow, and putting down an empty tray.)

ANNO: Heat! We’re full to bursting! Where are we going to put everyone?

ABBESS: Who cares? They’ll sleep on the floor before they’ll try building a shelter! So long as they pay!

ANNO: Oh, they’re paying! I had a man give me a rifle for a meal and the night! Says he won’t need it at the city.

ABBESS: The damn fools. If anything, he’ll have greater need for that gun where they’re headed. More people always leads to more fighting.

SIMEON: Have you ever seen so many smiles? Heard so much laughter? And both my girls are dancing with fine, young men headed for the City!

ABBESS: I saw that. Handsome ones too.

SIMEON: It is truly Jubilee! Have you two decided what you are going to do yet?

ANNO: We’re undecided—

ABBESS: We’re staying.

(SIMEON shakes his head. TINKER strides over, a bottle of whiskey in his hand. He is obviously drunk.)

TINKER: A fine party Abbess! One last hurrah before we’re all off to the city!

SIMEON: Not all of us.

TINKER: Still got your heels dug in, hey Abbess? Well, that’s fine. You don’t need to worry about me. I won’t bother you or Fen anymore. I think I’ll be too busy in my new role as Advisor to the Headmen to really be a very good father anyhow.

ABBESS: (Cold.) Well, that’s one more reason not to move to the new City.

TINKER: What’s that?

ABBESS: Congratulations. You have all the makings of a fine politician.

TINKER: How very kind Abbess! (He nods to Anno.) I must go and continue lifting the spirits of the pilgrims!

ABBESS: Pilgrims. You’d think he was the bloody Messiah.

SIMEON: He has brought hope.

ANNO: Don’t get her started.

(FEN comes running down the stairs.)

FEN: Mama! Come quick! There are people at the door! A man and a lady! And the lady--

ABBESS: Tell them we’re full! They’ll have to build a shelter! We’ve got no more room!

FEN: But mama! The lady’s gonna have a baby!

ABBESS: Heat! Of all the bad timing in the world—how ready is she Fen?

FEN: Really ready.

ABBESS: Well, bring them down. Take them to my room. Anno, start heating water. Simeon, go get your girls. I’ll need their help likely.

(ABBESS moves offstage in the direction of the kitchen. SIMEON walks towards his daughters, while FEN runs up the stairs to let the visitors in. Lights Fade Down. Music plays, a bittersweet melody.)

Rough Creatures: A Play for Advent - Part 3

2011-12-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Abbess – a strong, mature middle-aged woman who runs the Inn.

Tinker – a man of unknown age (older than mid-20’s) who roams the ice wasteland looking for items of value to trade

Simeon – a older Jewish man who lives at the Inn, hoping for the coming of the Messiah.

Rachel – Simeon’s eldest daughter – a whore

Sarah – Simeon’s younger daughter – a whore

Fen, the Matchstick Girl – the Abbess’ ‘daughter’.

Anno – The Abess’ husband

Woman – a traveler who comes upon the Inn in labor

Man – a traveler, the Woman’s companion

CAST

The Abbess – a strong, mature middle-aged woman who runs the Inn.

Tinker – a man of unknown age (older than mid-20’s) who roams the ice wasteland looking for items of value to trade

Simeon – a older Jewish man who lives at the Inn, hoping for the coming of the Messiah.

Rachel – Simeon’s eldest daughter – a whore

Sarah – Simeon’s younger daughter – a whore

Fen, the Matchstick Girl – the Abbess’ ‘daughter’.

Anno – The Abess’ husband

Woman – a traveler who comes upon the Inn in labor

Man – a traveler, the Woman’s companion

TINKER: I could see Gamin Sanctuary's beacon from the top of MacIntyre’s Rise, right before the storm blew in on me. It was so fierce! I stumbled through the whiteout, but knew I’d be dead if I didn’t try for shelter. So I started digging myself a shelter into a shelf of ice. And as I chipped away with my shovel, I dislodged an ice sheet which was over a grating. I pried the grating loose with my shovel, and then crawled through the tunnel behind it. It was completely dark. I couldn’t see a thing. Finally, I came to another grating. I didn’t have room to light a torch and see where I was heading, so I knocked the grating off with my shovel and slid through. Since I couldn’t turn around, I eased myself head-first out of the metal tunnel until I could reach my fire kit. I lit a match, and saw that there was floor about seven feet beneath me. I could feel that I was in a big room, just from the air. So I jumped down, lit a torch, and began exploring. It was obviously all man made. At first, I thought it was just another underground place, like the Sanctuary. But as I explored further, through halls that made my footsteps echo, I came upon a door, which lead out into the most marvelous place I have ever seen, or even heard described. It was a city, but not open to the sky, like all the rest must have been. This one had a huge roof over it, with spots where huge windows had been built to let in the light. At points, I could see holes in the ice that had formed over the windows, and that’s how I knew it wasn’t underground.

SIMEON: It’s really a city? How big is it?

TINKER: It’s so big, that there are hundreds of merchant’s shops, and inns. All the people living in Gamin Sanctuary could move there and would hardly take up any space. I walked several miles in one direction, starting at one end and going to the other. And that only makes up for maybe one third of the city—there’s little streets leading off the main one, and there are several levels to the city—just like the Sanctuary, only not just open stone. All the shops, the Inns…I’d never seen anything like it.

SIMEON: And there were no people?

TINKER: I came across a few remains, but whenever the Ice came, it came at a time when the people weren’t in the city. The bodies I found were carrying pistols like this one (he brandishes a revolver) so I assume they were watchmen, left to guard the city while the people were away.

ANNO: Why the hell would an entire city just up and leave?

SIMEON: It’s possible that they were away celebrating a festival of some sort. My people used to go to the City of God leaving their towns and villages once a year to worship God in His temple.

TINKER: That could be it. The whole city was decorated with shiny rope and huge sparkling shapes.

FEN: A star.

TINKER: What’s a star?

FEN: It’s in this book. Were the shapes like this one? (She holds up the book and points to the star of Bethlehem.)

TINKER: Yes! That’s what they looked like.

ANNO: Perhaps Fen’s book is about the festival. What does it say?

FEN: I don’t understand a lot of the words. Like this one; ‘messiah.’ What’s that Simeon?

SIMEON: (excited.) The book talks about the Messiah?

ANNO: Then you know what the word is?

SIMEON: Do I know what the word is? It’s the heart of my people’s faith Anno. It’s the hope we cling to. The hope for the coming of the Messiah.

ABBESS: You sound like you’re running for headman.

TINKER: Who knows? Not a bad aspiration for the man who discovered the City of God—

ABBESS: The what?

TINKER: Well, I was just thinking, since they were obviously worshipful people—what with having so many of those books and the dolls, all relating to the Messiah.

SIMEON: We can’t be sure that book is true—

TINKER: But a gift such as this city—it could only come from God, am I not right Simeon?

SIMEON: I suppose—

TINKER: And, most miraculous of all, there are trees everywhere, underground!

ABBESS: Trees can’t grow underground!

TINKER: So we’ve been told! But they’re there, fully grown, decorated with stars, and shiny things. I brought one to show you.

(He pulls a Christmas ornament from one of the pouches on his vest, and hands it to ABBESS, who looks it over.)

ABBESS: (sarcastic) It’s beautiful. (She places the ornament on the bar. RACHEL scoops it up.)

RACHEL: It is beautiful.

ANNO: What about the air. Was it breathable?

TINKER: It was pretty bad. I had to wear my mask. But I crawled in through a tunnel that seemed to be made for letting air into the city. If there’s one, there’s probably more. We’d just have to make sure they didn’t ice over. Keep them clear of snow. And besides, with all those trees, the air should clean up once we get all the dead bodies moved.

ANNO: So I guess you’ll be needing a place to stay while you’re here.

TINKER: A warm bed would be nice.

SIMEON: (SIMEON puts his arm around TINKER.) Surely this man is messiah to me! He brings this news of the Promised Land! There is a giant to conquer with the air, yes, but (he takes the ornament from RACHEL.) there are also grapes the size of a man’s fist.

(Everyone else looks perplexed. SIMEON places the ornament on the table. FEN picks it up, and inspects it while the others continue talking.)

TINKER: Well Anno, what do you say?

ANNO: It sounds fantastic. Almost too good to be true.

ABBESS: Which probably means it is.

ANNO: ‘Bess—don’t be so hard. It’s someplace to go to! The place I’ve been hoping for.

ABBESS: You’ve been hoping for it, not me. I like this inn just fine. I expect if everyone in Gamin Sanctuary and Southtown just up and moved, we’d have no room in Tinker’s fabulous city.

TINKER: You don’t sound enthused Abbess. Does this mean you won’t be coming with us?

ABBESS: You don’t even know if anyone will go with you.

TINKER: Of course they will! That’s what they—we all want—a place to start over!

ABBESS: I’ve already started over. This Inn was where I did it. I have a family, and we’re happy here.

TINKER: That’s something else I was meaning to speak to you about, Abbess. When I go to the city, I’m taking Fen with me.

(FEN looks up from the ornament. She missed the comment, but recognized her name.)

ABBESS: (Stunned.) What did you say?

TINKER: I said, when I return to the City, I’m taking Fen with me.

FEN: (Not comprehending at all.) I’d like to see the city Mama. We could all go visit!

TINKER: No Fen, I mean I’m taking you there to live with me.

FEN: (Confused.) But why? This is where I live. Here, with Mama and Papa.

TINKER: They’re not your real Mama and Papa Fen. I’m you’re real Papa.

ABBESS: You son of a bitch. (She lunges at him, but ANNO holds her back.)

ANNO: You’d better leave now Tinker.

TINKER: Not until I’m finished.

ANNO: You’re finished now.

TINKER: I have a right to tell her.

ANNO: No you don’t. You gave that up ten years ago. Now get the hell out of here. You’re not welcome.

ABBESS: Go, talk to the headman. I’m sure he’ll be interested to hear your story. But I’m not so easily given to your honey tongue, Tinker. What happens when the work gets hard? Will you be the one helping with the removal of the dead? Or will you just tuck tail and run when the going gets hard—like you did before.

TINKER: I don’t have to listen to this.

ABBESS: No, you’re right. You can always just walk away and do as you please, and come and go as you please.

TINKER: What do you want from me?

ABBESS: I wanted you to stay the hell away from her! You can’t just show up here now and tell her you’re her real father! That’s not fair! You don’t have the right!

ANNO: Get going.

(TINKER turns, grabs his pack, looks at FEN for a moment, and then heads up the stairs. SIMEON, RACHEL AND ESTHER all exit in the awkward silence. ANNO lets ABBESS go.)

ABBESS: Fen—

FEN: Are you my real parents?

ABBESS: (After a lengthy pause.) No.

FEN: So Tinker wasn’t lying?

ABBESS: No, for once he was telling the truth.

FEN: How come—you never told me?

ABBESS: I didn’t think you needed to know.

FEN: Oh.

ABBESS: Do you want to go with Tinker?

FEN: You don’t want me anymore?

ABBESS: No, no that’s not what I meant. I just—I don’t know Fen. I feel all mixed up, and I don’t know what to say.

FEN: Me too.

ABBESS: So what are we gonna do?

FEN: I don’t want to leave you and Pa—Anno.

ABBESS: You stop that right now. Anno is still your Papa—and I am still your Mama. If you don’t want to leave, then that doesn’t change. Do you understand?

FEN: I don’t know Ma—mama, I don’t know. I just want to go lie down. I want to lie down and read.

(FEN slides out of her chair and exits. ABBESS slumps into a chair, ANNO comes up behind her and places his hands on her shoulders.)

ANNO: I’m sorry ‘Bess.

ABBESS: I should’ve shot that bastard the minute he set foot in my Inn! Who the hell does he think he is? Fen’s so filled up with fairy tales and Simeon’s old stories—babies left by their parents, taken in by kings and queens—will she think it’s all wonderful, like one of those stories?

ANNO: I don’t know. She’s just a little girl. She doesn’t see the world the way we do. All hard and cold.

ABBESS: What if she wants to go with him?

ANNO: She doesn’t. She’s confused, but she won’t leave you.

ABBESS: You mean she won’t leave you.

ANNO: She won’t leave either of us. Stop hurting yourself. You’re the one who’s always saying we shouldn’t make pain up where there isn’t any. Fen loves you very much. No more than me, just different. The only reason she’d want to go would be to see the City, not to live with Tinker.

ABBESS: That’s what I’m afraid of. That she’ll go for that reason. Or that you’ll both go for that reason.

ANNO: Why are you so afraid of going? What if it’s as wonderful as Tinker says?

ABBESS: You trust that man?

ANNO: Tinker may be honey tongue, but he’s not stupid. He’s not going to lead two settlements across the ice waste to a place that doesn’t exist. He’d be torn apart when the lie was found out.

ABBESS: Maybe he’s just planning to lead everyone out there so he can steal from them.

ANNO: You know as well as I do that Tinker isn’t that kind of person. He’s selfish, but he’s not a murderer.

ABBESS: Anno, we’ve both seen what this world does to people. The ice wastes are just a beast, with great, sharp teeth, and it eats people. Some it eats slowly, and others faster, but it eats them all, just the same! I will not fill that child’s head with hope that doesn’t exist!

ANNO: You don’t know it doesn’t exist.

ABBESS: And I’m not risking the lives of my family just to see if Tinker’s city is really as grand as he says! My father took that risk on some wanderer’s say so, and we never made it!

ANNO: But Tinker knows where the city is. And he’s willing to lead us there.

ABBESS: Oh yes, for his glory. He’s equipped to travel the wastes. He’s been doing it ever since Fen’s mother died! Fen’s just a little girl! You really think she’ll make the journey

ANNO: I think the risk is worth it. So we stay here, while everyone in the Sanctuary leaves—who will we trade with? Who will stay at the inn?

ABBESS: People on their way to the ‘City of God.’

ANNO: You know as well as I do that’s a lot of heat. When the settlements hear about this place, they’ll all be coming here—one last time. There’ll be a few stragglers, sure, maybe even some who would take the journey farther than Southtown, but then that’s it.

Rough Creatures: A Play for Advent - Part 2

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Abbess – a strong, mature middle-aged woman who runs the Inn.

Tinker – a man of unknown age (older than mid-20’s) who roams the ice wasteland looking for items of value to trade

Simeon – a older Jewish man who lives at the Inn, hoping for the coming of the Messiah.

Rachel – Simeon’s eldest daughter – a whore

Sarah – Simeon’s younger daughter – a whore

Fen, the Matchstick Girl – the Abbess’ ‘daughter’.

Anno – The Abess’ husband

Woman – a traveler who comes upon the Inn in labor

Man – a traveler, the Woman’s companion

ACT 1

Scene 2

(Lights up on the Inn’s residents seated around the table. ABBESS is clearing away some of the dishes. ANNO is still eating heartily. SIMEON has pushed back from the table, obviously content.)

SIMEON: A fine supper Abbess. Better than we’ve had in a long time.

ABBESS: Oh I didn’t do much. Rachel and Esther did most of the cooking.

SIMEON: (haltingly) Well, it was very good.

ESTHER: Thank you papa.

(RACHEL says nothing. There is an uncomfortable silence.)

SIMEON: That must have been one hell of a cat, Anno, to produce so much meat.

ANNO: Uh, yes...yes it was. Very old, very fat.

SIMEON: Seemed lean enough to me.

ANNO: Well, large is what I meant to say.

FEN: Was it bigger than one of our dogs?

ANNO: No, about the same size. (ANNO finishes eating and pushes back from the table as well. He wants to change the topic.) Hell of a storm moving in.

ABBESS: Oh?

ANNO: From the west. Could see it coming, so I put the dogs in their shelter. Still might lose one to the storm, hard to say.

FEN: We should just bring them down here.

ABBESS: We have enough cleaning to do around this Inn without bringing dog shit into the picture. And speaking of cleaning Fen, why don’t you take these dishes and get started on them.

SIMEON: Well that’s hardly fair, considering Fen was out hunting for food all afternoon. I’ll handle the dishes Abbess.

FEN: Thank you Simeon.

(SIMEON starts gathering plates.)

ABBESS: You’ll spoil her.

SIMEON: We should all be so lucky, in this day and age, to be spoiled.

ABBESS: My grandmother told me that before the ice, there were several times a year where children were spoiled – presents, candies, all sorts of things.

ANNO: Harder to do now.

ESTHER: We still make candy on Grey Day.

ABBESS: I got the impression nobody had to make the candy. You’d go to a market and get some.

ESTHER: Where’s the fun in that?

ABBESS: Who knows? It’s just what she told me.

(SIMEON takes the dishes out of the room, to the kitchen.)

RACHEL: Any excuse to get him out of the room.

ESTHER: Don’t start.

FEN: Esther, Simeon

Rough Creatures: A Play for Advent - Part 1

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Abbess – a strong, mature middle-aged woman who runs the Inn.

Tinker – a man of unknown age (older than mid-20’s) who roams the ice wasteland looking for items of value to trade

Simeon – a older Jewish man who lives at the Inn, hoping for the coming of the Messiah.

Rachel – Simeon’s eldest daughter – a whore

Sarah – Simeon’s younger daughter – a whore

Fen, the Matchstick Girl – the Abbess’ ‘daughter’.

Anno – The Abess’ husband

Woman – a traveler who comes upon the Inn in labor

Man – a traveler, the Woman’s companion

ACT 1

Scene 1

(As the lights go up, we see the interior of the Inn. It is an assortment of obviously salvaged odds and ends, with the end result being something that vaguely resembles the common room of a frontier saloon. A series of shelves with a motley assortment of drinking vessels stands behind a poorly constructed counter. Bottles of a clear alcohol line the remaining shelves. There are stools lined up against the counter, and a table off to the side. A deck of cards sits on the table, as does a chess set. A fluorescent light fixture hangs over a potter of plants. The bulbs are presently off. Light comes from oil lamps on the bar and the shelves. There are ‘Christmas’ cacti around the room. FEN, a girl of about 10 years is sitting at the table, reading a book with SIMEON, an old man.)

FEN: (reading) “Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said.” (She stops reading, a look of horror on her face.) Oh no! Does that mean that after all that trouble, this baby will die too?

SIMEON: That would be giving it away. That’s the joy of stories you know. Wondering what happens next. (He takes the book from her hands.) I guess that’s where we’ll end for today.

FEN: (Pleadingly) Nooo…I want to know what happens.

SIMEON: Good incentive for coming to your lesson tomorrow. (She makes an exaggerated pout, and SIMEON just smiles.) Oh, all right. Read some more. (He returns the book.)

FEN: Yes! (SIMEON raises an eyebrow.) Thank you Simeon. (She finds her spot on the page and continues reading.) She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?" "Yes, go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water." (she looks up.) What’s a Pharaoh?

SIMEON: A Pharaoh…would be like the Headman of the Sanctuary, only he had many more people to rule over.

FEN: Like a king!

SIMEON: Yes, like a king! Where did you learn about kings?

FEN: From one of the books in Mama’s boxes. It’s called “Fairy Tales,” and it’s filled with stories just like the Torah!

SIMEON: No, not just like the Torah! The Torah is filled with true stories, things that really happened. Fairy tales are stories that did not really happen.

FEN: You mean there aren’t any real kings?

SIMEON: Oh, yes, there are real kings. There are kings in the Torah…like David, the greatest king who ever lived, and his son Solomon…

FEN: I want to read about them!

SIMEON: I thought you wanted to find out what happened to the little baby.

FEN: I do…I just like stories about kings, and princesses.

SIMEON: Well, I told you, Pharaoh is like a king, so his daughter would be like a princess.

FEN: (Her eyes lighting up.) A princess! Can we read some more?

SIMEON: No, I think that is enough for now. You found out that the baby did not die, so we can leave the story alone until your next lesson. Time for chess.

FEN: (Putting away the book and helping Simeon set up the board.) Do Rachel and Esther know how to play chess too?

SIMEON: Yes, I taught them both when they were little girls. Rachel was better at it than Esther, but they were both very good. Just like you are.

FEN: Then how come you never play chess with them?

SIMEON: (Speechless for a moment.) Well, Fen…you see…(he notices she has the bishops and rooks mixed up.) Now look here, this is the rook – and this one is the bishop. (He switches where they go.)

FEN: You still haven’t answered my question.

SIMEON: What question?

FEN: About Rachel and Esther.

(Suddenly the loud voices of ABBESS and ANNO interrupt them. SIMEON gives FEN a knowing glance. They smile conspiratorially. This obviously happens a fair amount, and is nothing serious.)

ABBESS: (offstage) I don’t give a damn how important those dogs are Anno, they don’t make us any money, and we’re running low on food. If you don’t have the balls to shoot one of them and skin it, then I will.

(ABBESS enters, a middle aged woman with a bundle in her arms.)

ANNO: (offstage) Don’t talk to me about having balls woman; it’s not that I haven’t the stomach for it, it’s just that every time we kill off one of those dogs, we kill off any hope we’ve got for making it out of this place.

(ANNO enters. He is wearing clothing that is obviously intended for cold weather.)

ABBESS: (incredulous) Make it out of this place? Anno, when the hell are you going to stop dreaming about getting out of this place. This Inn is our home. Your father fixed it up, gave it to you, and all you can think about is leaving! Heat!

ANNO: You’ve just given up hope.

ABBESS: I haven’t given it up. I’ve just stopped hoping in foolishness, is all.

ANNO: Hoping for a better place to live isn’t foolishness.

(SIMEON stands up and stretches. ANNO and ABBESS look at him, seeing him for the first time since they entered.)

SIMEON: I used to complain about living in the Sanctuary. My grandfather would always say to me, “Simeon, if you can’t be content where you are, you’ll never be content anywhere else.”

ANNO: What’s there around here to be content with?

ABBESS: (Throwing herself across his lap.) Me. (ANNO laughs and kisses her on the cheek. FEN jumps up from her chair and joins them.)

FEN: And me! (ABBESS hugs FEN close.)

ABBESS: We are more than content to have you, Fen.

SIMEON: Children are a blessing from the hand of God.

(FEN looks up at ABBESS.)

FEN: Mama, I don’t want one of the dogs to die.

ABBESS: All things die Fen. If we don’t have food, it will be us.

ANNO: What if I go catch a cat or two?

ABBESS: If you can find a live cat in the Sanctuary, I’d be more than happy to cook it for you.

ANNO: Rat?

ABBESS: If I eat another rat…

ANNO: All right, all right… (He goes to exit.)

FEN: I’ll help you catch a cat, Papa!

ANNO: You think we can find one together Fen?

FEN: If it means we don’t have to eat one of the dogs, I’ll catch two!

(ANNO looks to ABBESS, who shrugs her shoulders, smiles, and waves him off.)

ANNO: Well, then mighty hunter, let’s go see what we can find!

ABBESS: He’s too soft for this world, Simeon.

SIMEON: We could use softness around here. Don’t be too hard on Anno. His grandfather brought those dogs down from the far wastes. They’re loyal animals. He used to talk about how they’d keep a polar bear occupied long enough for the master to shoot it.

ABBESS: You need polar bear around for that to happen Simeon. The only animals around here are the few rats that escape the snares. And those will be gone soon, at the rate things are going.

SIMEON: My mother said rats were once considered pests; people killed them just to get rid of them.

ABBESS: They didn’t eat them?

SIMEON: That’s just what she told me.

ABBESS: What a strange world it must have been before the sun disappeared. Killing animals just to kill them…my mother said they used to cut down trees to bring them in the house for some sort of festival. And now you’d kill someone to have a live tree.

SIMEON: We must always keep going. Keep striving. When I was a little boy, my mother told me tales of her great grandfather…or was it her great, great, grandfather…(ABBESS is staring at him with a look of irritation, as if to say “get on with it.”)—one of my ancestors. He was taken as a little boy by an invading army and put to work in awful camps where my people were killed by the thousands, only because we were Jews. When he was in the camp, he was certain it would be the end of him, and likely his people as well. But somehow he survived, and life went on. The Jewish people did not die out…even today, here I am, and two daughters…such as they are.

ABBESS: Yes, but with the resurgence of the plague—no live babies born in Gamin Sanctuary now for four years. That’s not a good sign.

SIMEON: The Lord will not abandon us. He has promised to send his Messiah!

ABBESS: What happens if your Messiah gets born somewhere else?

SIMEON: It won’t matter where he’s born—he is going to bring my people back to greatness, just as Moses once did.

ABBESS: Who’s Moses?

SIMEON: One of my ancestors. He was sent by God to free the Jewish people when they were enslaved in a foreign land. Come to think of it, perhaps it was Moses who freed my mother’s great, great grandfather…

ABBESS: Is that another one of those stories from that old book of yours. (She picks it up and opens it.)

SIMEON: The Torah. Yes, it is from there.

ABBESS: By the way, thank you for teaching Fen.

SIMEON: It’s no trouble. It’s easier to help raise your daughter—

ABBESS: She’s not my daughter…we just take care of her.

SIMEON: She seems to think she is your daughter. Sometimes life isn’t what we see, it’s what we believe. Anyhow, it is still easier getting along with Fen than it is talking with those two Jezebels the Lord left me with. (he gets into a ‘preaching’ voice) "The leech has two daughters. 'Give! Give!' they cry. There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, 'Enough!': the grave, the barren womb…”

ABBESS: Enough! I say ‘enough!’ I’ve told you before Simeon, I’ll not abide that sort of talk about the girls. They made the only choice they had – if they could get married off, you know they would. But there’s a shortage of healthy men down in the Sanctuary.

SIMEON: So it’s better to sell your body to all the traveling riff-raff that come through here?

ABBESS: One of those riff-raff might give you a grandchild.

SIMEON: No grandchild of mine.

ABBESS: That’s enough of your poison. Any living child born in this world is a child nearly all of us would want to claim as our own. Don’t you go thinking so much hurt. There’s enough real hurt without you cooking it up in yourself.

(Footsteps can be heard on the staircase. RACHEL and ESTHER enter, laughing about something.)

RACHEL: Such a skinny little thing he was. Must have been for his coming of age.

SIMEON: Have you no shame?

RACHEL: None, father. I traded all my shame to stay alive. No, no shame left. But I do have eggs. (She holds a basket out to ABBESS.)

ABBESS: Eggs! Good lord you girls charge enough! If I’d known we would have eggs, I wouldn’t have sent Anno and Fen off hunting cats! Oh well, the meat will keep. (She walks off to the ‘kitchen’ with the eggs. The girls are left alone in the room with their father. ESTHER, hoping for some time with her father, sits down at the table with SIMEON.)

ESTHER: Would you like to play chess, Papa?

SIMEON: If your mother could see you.

RACHEL: Well, she can’t. She’s dead. And we’re alive, and doing the only thing we can to stay that way.

SIMEON: Living outside the law of God is not living.

RACHEL: Well, if God wants me to live under His law, He’d damn well better bring back the sun.

SIMEON: God didn’t take the sun! We did! Your great grandfather said—

RACHEL: And others say it wasn’t us! They say it was God, that a great stone fell from the sky and made the earth the way it is!

SIMEON: God wouldn’t do that…he wouldn’t allow…

RACHEL: Allow what? What he allows everyday? Wouldn’t allow the entire world to be covered in ice, wouldn’t allow the clouds to never part? Wouldn’t allow any new babies to be born? What wouldn’t God allow?

SIMEON: I’m not listening to this. (He exits, angry.)

ESTHER: Why do you do that? He might have played…

RACHEL: He started it.

ESTHER: I know, but you could just ignore him. It’s not the life any of us hoped for. Mama wanted us to find husbands, have babies…

RACHEL: Well, that’s what I’m trying to do.

ESTHER: What?

RACHEL: Sit down, let’s play some cards.

ESTHER: I wanted to play chess.

RACHEL: You were never very good at chess Esther. Stick to games you’re good at.

(ESTHER shoots her sister a look, but RACHEL is oblivious. They sit down at the table, and RACHEL starts dealing cards for a game. ABBESS enters, wiping her hands on her apron.)

ABBESS: Game of cards! Mind if I join you?

(RACHEL pulls out a chair and deals ABBESS her cards. The girls’ conversation takes place during the game.)

ABBESS: Simeon and you have another argument? Is that why he left?

RACHEL: You need to ask?

ABBESS: Just being conversational.

ESTHER: Speaking of conversational, Rachel, you were just about to tell me what you meant by saying you are doing what Mama wanted you to?

RACHEL: Well, that’s not why I started whoring, but I was thinking about that story Papa used to tell us about that man, from the Torah, the one who God told to marry a whore.

ESTHER: There’s no such story!

RACHEL: There is so. And so the man does, and she keeps on whoring, but God tells him to stay with her anyhow.

ESTHER: So?

RACHEL: Well, I was talking with Bridget, the lady who makes dresses down in the Sanctuary, and I got to feeling sorry for myself and started crying, and she asked me what was wrong, and when I told her, she told me not to give up hope. (The women stare at her, waiting for the revelation.) She told me she had been a whore down in Southtown, and that her husband and her moved to Gamin Sanctuary so people wouldn’t talk too much. Made me swear I wouldn’t tell anybody.

ABBESS: Being the tight-lipped confidant you are and all. (ANNO reenters, his gloves bloody.) Back so soon?

ANNO: I told Fen we could hunt better if we split up. (He looks at his hands.) I assume she won’t know the difference between dog and cat—don’t tell her.

ABBESS: (Stands and crosses to him.) You are a good man. (She kisses him on the cheek. There is an awkward silence. ABBESS attempts to break the mood.) You and Rachel should get together and talk hope Anno. You hoping for a place to move to, Rachel hoping for a husband to walk in and sweep her off her feet…

ANNO: What this?

RACHEL: Nothing. I wasn’t saying nothing.

ABBESS: Rachel here thinks whoring’s a good way to find a husband.

ANNO: (grinning) Beats bringing him home at gunpoint.

ABBESS: You hush now.

RACHEL: No, there’s a story there, or I’ve never heard one. Come on Anno, ‘fess. Did Abbess make you marry her at gunpoint?

ANNO: Not quite. I was taking some potatoes down to Southtown by dogsled, and saw a fire out on the wastes. So I went to investigate. And there was Abbess, cradling a shotgun in her lap, half-starved, half-dead, burning what appeared to be a sledge.

ABBESS: My family was from the flatlands to the east, where there’s no shelter from the winds and the cold. We thought we might find something better if we came west, toward the mountains. By the time I reached here, most everyone had died off.

ESTHER: I’m sorry…

ABBESS: People die. It’s the way the world is.

RACHEL: I’d like to hear the rest of the story.

(ANNO looks at ABBESS for consent to continue. She nods.)

ANNO: Well, that was how I found her. I guess that’s where she got her taste for sled dog, because there was a spit of meat roasting on that fire. I hadn’t had meat in a good while, so I tried sneaking over to steal me some of it.

ESTHER: Anno!

ANNO: I wasn’t gonna take all of it! And besides, I had every intention of taking her with me to Southtown.

ABBESS: Only I didn’t know it. And the sound of his boots on the ice woke me up. I aimed that shotgun at him and said…

ANNO: That’s my damn dog. Go get your own.

(This is apparently very funny to the couple. RACHEL and ESTHER try to laugh at the joke, but it is obviously something shared between ABBESS and ANNO.)

ANNO: (Still laughing.) So she points the shotgun at me and asks me where the nearest settlement is. I wasn’t all that far from the Sanctuary at that point, but I told her I was headed for Southtown. And she just waves the shotgun and tells me to bring her back here. And that’s how we met.

ABBESS: Romantic, eh?

ANNO: Well, that’s not the whole story. The whole story is that she started helping out around the Inn, and when my father saw how good she was with the customers, he started her as a working girl.

RACHEL: Abbess?

ABBESS: What? You two thought you were the first girls to try making a living on their back in this establishment?

ANNO: You make it sound like you know what these girls have had to go through. Tell them the rest.

ABBESS: Anno couldn’t stand the thought of me being with another woman, he was so smitten by my beauty, so he proposed to me about an hour after his father hired me on as a working girl.

ANNO: Well, my father wasn’t too pleased, but my mother was, and they both agreed that having grandchildren would be a good thing. (This kills the conversation as surely as anything.) Damn. I’m sorry. (He exits, embarrassed, gone back to finish his work.)

ABBESS: Anno! It’s all right! (He’s gone.)

RACHEL: At least there’s Fen.

ABBESS: Yes. But Anno thinks it’s his fault, and I think it’s why he’s so—careful with me. I can’t have a proper argument with the man, because sooner or later it occurs to him that he never gave his mother—or me—a little boy or girl.

RACHEL: But no one’s had a live birth for nearly ten years!

ABBESS: Fen was the last.

ESTHER: But she was sick as a child, wasn’t she?

ABBESS: Oh yes. And her mother caught it, and died, and then her father couldn’t bear the grief and went off into the wastes. Left Fen all by herself, the selfish bastard.

RACHEL: It’s been a piece since we’ve seen Tinker.

ABBESS: Nearly a year. It’s probably the longest he’s been gone.

RACHEL: Well, for all his past sins, I miss him. He makes me laugh.

ABBESS: He makes us all laugh. And I guess I should be thankful. If he hadn’t gone off, I’d never known what it would like to raise a child.

ESTHER: Have you told her?

ABBESS: What would the point be? Besides, she thinks the world of Tinker. It would kill her to think he’d gone off and left her as a child.

ESTHER: But when she’s older, don’t you think she’ll understand?

ABBESS: Maybe. But there’s enough hurt in this world without us looking for ways to bring more in.

ESTHER: That’s true enough. Still, if Simeon wasn’t my real father, I think I’d want to know that.

RACHEL: If Simeon wasn’t my real father, I’d throw a party.

ESTHER: That’s no way to talk about papa.

RACHEL: He doesn’t speak kindly of me, I’m just returning the favor. Eye for an eye, isn’t that what his Torah says?

ABBESS: Don’t necessarily make it right. Simeon’s just having a hard time watching the world fall apart around him. He’s older than anyone I know girls; he remembers when things were a little better. A time when kids were still getting born, when there were still cats to hunt…

RACHEL: The plague didn’t spare the cats or rats neither, did it?

ABBESS: Some think it was the rats who carried the plague, passed it on to the cats, and then onto us. It’s like the world just wants us all dead. Dead and gone.

ESTHER: This is certainly a cheerful conversation.

RACHEL: Things aren’t cheerful, Esther.

ESTHER: I am. I’m cheerful. I’m happy to be living here with Abbess and her family, and I’m happy for all the men that come to visit, ‘cause if they didn’t, we’d have all starved by now.

ABBESS: That’s true enough Esther. I’m sorry, but it’s just not in my nature to see the happy side of things. It seems easier to see things just the way they are.

ESTHER: I don’t see things any other way than they are as far as I’m concerned.

ABBESS: Well then, you’re charmed. Feel blessed, and maybe just point out all the good things you see.

(They sit playing cards a moment.)

ESTHER: Playing cards.

ABBESS: Pardon me?

ESTHER: Playing cards. It’s a good thing. You told me to point the good things out to you.

ABBESS: I’m not sure I was asking you to tell me every good thing you see. But I have to admit, I certainly do love a good game of cards.

RACHEL: (laying all the cards in her hand down in a pattern.) As do I. I’m out.

(LIGHTS DOWN.)

Seven Sacred Seasons: Incarnation Season

2011-12-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

Despite our modern impression that Christmas starts as soon as Halloween (Canada) or Thanksgiving (United States) is over, traditionally, Christmas doesn't start until Christmas day. Everything leading up to December 25 is the celebration of Advent. I think Advent is a wonderful approach to Christmas, for both secular and spiritual adherents of the holiday. While the rituals for a Christian advent are readily available, with some tweaking, people who don't subscribe to any religion or who are of another faith living in a country where Christmas is celebrated, could find a way to light those four candles in the four weeks leading up to the holiday.

We always celebrated Advent at the Gathering, and encouraged our community to spend Christmas eve and Christmas day at home with family. We held no services from the last Sunday of Advent until the closest Sunday to January 6, the Feast of Epiphany, when we would re-gather. In later years, when we switched to the liturgical rhythms of the Sacred Seasons, we encompassed Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany under the heading of Incarnation Season.

Just as my band was often tapped for All Saints because of our suitability to Halloween, Incarnation Season was almost always handled by a talented musical couple, Craig and Deborah Brososky, whose inspirations included Natalie Merchant, Tori Amos, Sarah MacLachlan, and Loreena McKennitt. Though the other musicians they included switched from year to year, the sounds they created were always well-suited to Christmas hymns and carols. They always practiced a surprise song, which ranged from obvious choices like "Linus and Lucy" from A Charlie Brown Christmas, to less obvious ones (but no less dear in our community!), such as "May it Be" from the Lord of the Rings films as part of their Christmas offerings.

One of my favorite band slides - a little Queen influence.

I've included some slides I created for Incarnation Season at the Gathering. Feel free to use them in your seasonal worship. As a gift to make up for my lax posting over Advent, I'll be posting a script I was preparing for a Christmas production at the Gathering. Due to casting difficulties, I never finished it, but I was proud of it, and want to share it with my Gotthammer readers as a seasonal reflection of sorts.

The Risk of Birth, Christmas 1973

There is no time for a child to be born

With the earth betrayed by war and hate

And a comet slashing the sky to warn

That time runs out and the sun burns late

That was no time for a child to be born

In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

Honour and truth were trampled by scorn --

Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on the planet earth,

And by a comet the sky is torn--

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

- Madeleine L'Engle

Seven Sacred Seasons: All Saints

2011-11-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

While Seven Devil Fix was most often given the All-Saints duties for music, there were exceptions. Most notably in my mind was the year Craig Brososky lead a motley crew of our musicians in Supahband. It was hip in those days to riff off the Trainspotting poster, and given the photo session I had with the group, it was an easy riff to use.

Seven Sacred Seasons: All Saints

2011-11-01T16:21:00.001-06:00

Here we are, balanced between All Hallows' Eve and All Saints Day. Unlike the loud advocates of Jesusween, we celebrated Halloween early in the Gathering's history, without the usual Evangelical whitewashing (come as your favorite Bible character!). We were of the opinion that there are many scary moments in the Bible (a number occur in the Christmas stories!), and wanted to celebrate a season where we recognized how the days were growing shorter in our hemisphere, and the darkness was increasing. We knew we couldn't make the whole season about Halloween or darkness without creeping out prospective attendees (more than we already were, at any rate), so we tried some other options.

Brad Nault originally drew this Leviathan and all the monsters on the other slides: I hope he's okay with me using this image here. I wanting to make the opening slideshow with "Monsters of the Bible" including their stats like they were D&D monsters, but ran out of time, and only did the Leviathan that way.

Originally, we celebrated this season as Michaelmas, which focuses primarily on spiritual conflict, but that seemed too narrow to make a yearly event, despite its clear resonances with Halloween. Instead, we went with something broader: All Saints. The theme was simple - we would look at the lives of the "saints" throughout history - those in scripture, those in history, and potentially even those in our midst. It was a time for telling our own stories or celebrating the lives of great spiritual leaders.

Sadly, I don't think this season ever cohered to its intended thematic content. What was repeated year, after year, was that my band, Seven Devil Fix, was often the music for the whole season, or just for our Halloween service. I remember the Halloween services particularly, but I don't recall much else about the season.

Seven Devil Fix always got the gig because we wrote songs intentionally about dark spiritual themes: "Ghostwood" was a song about longing for paradise using Twin Peaks allusions, Skeleton Army was about Christian martyrdom in the semi-legendary tale of the Salvation Army's initial opposition, The Burden was about communion told through the eyes of a vampire, and Tremendum was about relating to God as an expression of the literary sublime. Our name was a reference to the seven devils cast from Mary Magdalene, and one year we even wore horns just to underscore the idea.

I miss those Halloween services. They were the closest I ever got to creating worship experiences that mirrored the purpose of the Jack 'O Lantern. That is to say, our music could virtually ward off evil spirits by virtue of being more terrifying than they were. It was brazen, to be sure, but it never felt wrong. I've always detested the mincing around evil that some expressions of Christianity engages in. On the one hand, we were taught to be spiritually bold; on the other, we acted like there was a devil under every rock that could kick our spiritual ass. There was a lot of don't taste and don't touch in my hometown church. At the Gathering, we were somewhat fearless, and I loved the community for it.

Thankfully, I can share those songs with you now, thanks to former Seven Devil Fix drummer Taylor Reese uploading our entire discography to Grooveshark for your listening pleasure.

Seven Sacred Seasons: Gathering Season

2011-09-17T20:32:00.004-06:00

When the Gathering started up, we didn't have sacred seasons at all. They were the byproduct of switching from one paid speaking pastor to utilizing a pool of speaking/teaching/worship leading volunteers in our third year. Initially, we just had a pool of people who rotated through the various roles. The problem was, we never achieved any unity to the speaking or themes of our worship. So in response, I designed a liturgical year which was honed and developed by our worship teams and leadership over the next seven years. The Gathering Season underwent the greatest change, initially acting as a bookend to Creation Season, our equivalent to Ordinary Time in other liturgical circles.

The first Gathering Season was held in June, right before what was Creation Season at the time, to commemorate the start of the Gathering in early June of 1998. Three years in, I began producing annual videos, short film montages to celebrate what had happened in the year prior. They became a favorite tradition of the Gathering. Sadly, they were produced in the years before massive hard drives, so they were always dumped to hard copy high-end tapes. I haven't digitally captured them again, but when I do, they'll get uploaded to the Net.

In the last four or five years of the Gathering, we stopped having two Gathering seasons. It seemed better to just celebrate Gathering Season in the fall, since the word had two meanings: our own fellowship, but also the Gathering of harvest. So Gathering Season came to be a sort of "harvest" season for us in an evangelistic sense. It was the only time of the year we gave a really hard push to see new people come, since September always felt like a new beginning anyhow. Further, we could commemorate our first public service in September 1998.

Unlike the other Sacred Seasons, Gathering Season never had a strong thematic core. It was up to the volunteer worship team, decor team, media crew, and speaker to decide on an appropriate theme. Some years, we had a number of speakers and musicians, to help new people get a fuller flavor for the Gathering.

I loved Gathering Season for its newness in those years. We become trained to the rhythm of the school year, and never really forget that sense of reboot that fall and a new school year brings. There was always a sense of excitement as we literally gathered together again after having been separated during the Sabbatical of Creation Season.

This last wallpaper was from the final Gathering Season, which had a double meaning. It was not only the reset of the church year for us, but also a last ditch effort to reset the Gathering. We had gone through some tough decisions in 2007, the worst being the decision to abandon our strip mall location due to rising real estate prices in Edmonton. We ended up renting from a Mennonite church that year, which caused an effective split in the church. After ten years of striving together, the Gathering became fragmented by the question of where we would gather. A handful of us pushed on for one last year. Every time I look at that wallpaper, I feel a bittersweetness. It was good that we took that last year. I don't think I could have let go the following fall if I hadn't tried my hardest, and gave my last energy to those final ten months. We hit reset in the hope that things would continue, but they didn't.

And yet, every year when the seasons change and school begins again, I feel the newness of Gathering season. May you also, wherever you gather today.

Seven Sacred Seasons: Creation Season

2011-07-12T13:38:00.000-06:00

This wallpaper was done by Jeff Nelson, not me, but it was too brilliant not to include here.

Summer was always Creation Season for the Gathering, but the nature of it changed over the years. There was a period where we celebrated the Gathering's birthday after Pentecost season, and called that "Gathering Season." However, we also did "Gathering Season" in the fall, and since that really always felt like the startup of the church year for us, it remained so. To have two Gathering Seasons was confusing, and in later years, we took off both July and August for a sabbatical, given that we were a totally volunteer-lead organization. So to have any services in Creation Season, we moved the services to June.

This prayer has been placed over a photo of one of the Gathering's community, so we could pray for her while she was abroad, living in New Zealand. The photo was taken by Nathan Waddell, and is one of my favorite prayer slides.

The worship was evocative of Celtic Christianity and Spirituality, which has a strong element of eco-justice and awareness to it. We did prayer walks at the Parliament Grounds, labyrinths, picnics, outdoor/backyard services, and in general tried to spend time in Creation. The most memorable of these outdoor services for me was held in my backyard when the Gathering was between venues. There was rain in the forecast, so my industrious father-in-law brought over several king-sized tarps, and strung those from the roof of my house to the three massive trees that bordered my fence. It was like being under a massive tent. It was fortuitous that he'd done so, as the forecasted rain was a gross understatement. It was like a monsoon -- we were sloughing water off the tarps with broom handles, and the Djembe skin was too damp from the air alone to play properly. Nevertheless, I remember attendees dancing outside the tarp-zone, splashing joyfully in the fast-puddling water. We have no record of that event, as the heavy moisture in the air damaged the Gathering's digital camera, and we lost the photos.

The wallpaper for the last Creation Season we celebrated at the Gathering.

Sometimes we did services devoted to personal creativity rather than Creation itself. Here is a series of slides I made for one of our Creation Season services, all centered on that theme.

The G-Arts Festival was one of the core celebrations during Creation Season: it was held in August, and it simultaneously ended our time of sabbath and kicked off our fall season, without causing anyone an undue amount of planning duties. Everyone at the Gathering was encouraged to participate, and we stressed how creativity was more than just art or music. People brought their collections to display, art to present, music to perform, poetry to read. Children contributed. We saw belly dancing and dramatic improv, slideshows of home renovations, and one year Jenica and I performed a salsa dance. One of my Creation Season offerings was a work of art I'd collaborated on with Nathan Thomas, who went on to do many cool things in animation, such as working on cartoons such as League of Super Evil. We only had about a month to do the comic, and this in our spare time while working at a summer camp. Every night, we took an hour and drew furiously: Nathan did the pencils, and I did the inks. The idea for the strip was to make the book of Ezekiel a modern work, inspired by Maus.

Here's the first image, of Ezekiel looking down onto the River Chebar, and seeing the devastation there. I've had plans to colour the whole strip and put in text, but as I've proven yet again this year with Josh and Caleb still awaiting completion, these things are easier said than done. Nevertheless, I did a test panel for Creation Season to demonstrate the process of drawing a comic.

Here is a frame of Ezekiel speaking prophecy. The first image shows Nathan's pencils.

The above image shows Nathan's pencils, now with my inks.

Next, I erase the pencils by a process of raising the contrast and brightness. I left them in very faintly, because I want there to be concrete record of Nathan's involvement, and I like that dirty approach.

Now for the colors, done first in flats.

And finally, the finished version, with shadows and desaturated colors. I tried to strip all the bright colors out, as my use of color and dodge and burn effects in Josh and Caleb drove Nathan a little nuts. I really like how this turned out, and look forward to getting the opportunity to present the whole strip here at Gotthammer in the future.

This last wallpaper was done by Taylor Reese, my brother-in-law, and features the brilliant humor of Gary Kurtz of PvP fame:

This last wallpaper was one of my first cracks at using a program that built digital landscapes. I no longer remember the name of the program, but I remember being in awe of the way it combined a simulation of creation, and encouraged the creative process.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 6: Judgment Episode 02

2011-06-29T06:00:00.001-06:00

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Director's Commentary: As art, I love these pages. The layout looks good to me, and I'm very happy with the colour job. This is grim stuff, though. I based the way these guys die on something involving the original Hebrew in this passage - basically, the smiting here was of the worst kind, and I wanted that reflected. The Hebrew here is מַגֵּפָה (maggephah), which means either slaughter or plague. I was clearly in a much darker mental space, as I now find it rather disturbing. I must have at the time as well, or Josh wouldn't have been questioning it. Here's the original warning that acted as a link to the page where Igal and crew have their guts being turned inside out.

Seven Sacred Seasons: Pentecost

2011-06-26T21:29:00.003-06:00

Immediately following Holy Week (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday), the Gathering celebrated Pentecost Season. Officially, this is the Easter season, but people get confused when you say that, since in North America, it seems every high holiday is over the day you actually celebrate it (like Christmas, which is the end of Advent and the start of Christmas proper).

This was a time for reflecting on the Body of Christ: the Church. The Gathering had a strong belief in the Priesthood of Believers, and this was one of the times we celebrated it. Worship themes centered on the work of the church, how to be the Body of Christ, what is the Church supposed to be doing. I wish I had an audio option here on Blogger, as I have a few decent sermons from this season I'd love to share. We often did Spiritual Gift inventories in this season, and in later years, to give our speakers a break, we tried out videos of speakers, which was met with mixed success (Rob Bell was a hit, Eugene Peterson was not). As the years wore on, we moved from test-style inventories to discussions of the gifts, and actively recognizing them in others. I've included my Spiritual Gift inventory slides as a gift to those still engaging in these discussions. Neither the text nor original photos belong to me - I just mixed them up and Photoshopped a bit.

What's of interest to me is how we ever needed an inventory for this sort of thing. We should have just looked at each other and said, "Hey, you're good at this." I think this is especially true of the less flashy gifts. I'm also not convinced any gift list was meant to be exhaustive.

Once upon a time, I scored highly in faith, leadership, prophecy, and teaching. Those were my top gifts, year after year. At some point, I stopped scoring highly in faith: where once I had believed that God would always be there to catch my fall, I began experiencing great disappointments that I have never quite recovered from. I am still a hopeful person, but not in the way I once was. I stand with the father of the demoniac boy who asked Jesus to help his poor faith. I'd be lucky if my faith were weighed and measured and it came anywhere close to a mustard seed's mass. Where I once was a leader, I now prefer to be in the background: I am content to sit in the pew in Church, and to serve under another person's leadership in the workplace. I do not want to be in charge of anything. I believe I experienced what is called Caregiver Burnout at some point, and no longer enjoy being responsible for other people other than my family. In staff meetings I sit as silent as I can, trying to avoid asserting myself for fear that "natural leader" who plagued me since grade one will rear his head. As for prophecy, I continue to exercise what appears to be a prophetic voice to some, but is likely only my critical eye and cynicism leveled at the excesses of the North American Church. But teaching I retain in full, though I am dubious as to the whole idea of the Holy Spirit gifting anyone beyond the skills and talents they were born with or developed with age. I have always been good at communicating, and continue to do so. It was my identification of teaching being the only part of the pastoral work I still loved towards the end that spurred me on to finally leave paid ministry entirely, and become an academic.

For those who retain those other gifts, feel free to use these slides as they are helpful. My apologies that they are not larger: they were made eight years ago, and I've lost the original images. These were saved from power point presentation backgrounds.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 6: Judgment Episode 01

2011-05-16T14:50:00.001-06:00

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Director's Commentary: Love the colouring across the board here, but I hate the line art in the first image. Much happier with the second strip. By this point, I'd settled on a design for Moses, just in time to never draw him again. I really like the clean approach I took here. Again, much of the dialogue is taken from Eugene Peterson's The Message.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 5: Azra'il, Episode 07

2011-05-13T11:39:00.002-06:00

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Director's Commentary: Sorry about the lack of update yesterday - Blogger's dashboard was down, so I couldn't update.
And here we come to the doubling of episodes. There are two of the original episodes on this page. At this point in the series, I made the decision to change the orientation of the strips to reflect the design of the original Gotthammer site. This ensured people didn't have to scroll to see the episode art. Sadly, it doesn't work so well for Blogger, but c'est la vie. You can just click on the images to see the art in all its full-sized glory, or lack thereof.
I was reading On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism by Gershom Scholem when I was writing these strips, which is why I chose the Shekinah as the manifestation of YHWH in these episodes. Moses' speech is a paraphrase of a section of Scholem's book.
While I'm not thrilled that Moses is changing his look yet again (different eyes from last page), I like everything else about these strips. I really like the second episode as Igal picks up Josh's sword, with ill intent in his eyes. Very happy with the reflection of the flames in the sword.
The lines spoken by the Shekinah are from Eugene Peterson's dynamic translation of the Bible, The Message.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 5: Azra'il, Episode 06

2011-05-11T09:26:00.003-06:00

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Director's Commentary: I hate how I kept changing Moses's look. On this page, he's clearly Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan. I should have had him say "Takin' it to the streets" or "Yah mo be there" at some point. I also didn't make Caleb's line clear enough to be a joke - they're in a burning ring of fire - get it? As to why Josh is injured, who knows? After all, the rock hit him in the head. Maybe somebody stepped on him. It's a gong show on this page, folks.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 5: Azra'il, Episode 05

2011-05-10T13:23:00.003-06:00

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Director's Commentary: I love this page. There isn't a thing I'd change about it, short of having had hours instead of one hour to do the line art. One of the ongoing challenges of making Josh and Caleb was always time. Sequential art is a big time investment.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 5: Azra'il, Episode 04

2011-05-09T11:15:00.003-06:00

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Director's Commentary: While I'm not thrilled with my line art on this page, the coloring and "post-production" elements are among my favorites in the series. My coloring for the Ark of the Covenant led me to throw out the line art in that panel entirely, except for the bottom of the curtains. For those unfamiliar with Jewish theology, the curtain separated the people from the Holy of Holies - here we see it blowing back, and the glory of God coming down like a pillar of white fire, in response to Caleb's call.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 5: Azra'il, Episode 03

2011-05-06T09:57:00.002-06:00

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Director's commentary: The wheels fell off in April, as they always do. It gets so busy, even just updating a pre-made post is too much! My apologies to everyone who was faithfully following along with Josh and Caleb for this "re-release."
I'm feeling pretty reticent about posting the rest, given recent events in the world. Osama bin Laden's death has reminded me yet again about religious violence. Ultimately, I've decided to continue with the repostings, mainly because Josh's attitude comes to mirror Sun Tzu's in The Art of War: "Treat your victory as a funeral." In other words, don't be gleeful at the death of your enemy. It's been sobering, looking at these comics with hindsight, and the eyes of a post-evangelical. Hopefully this commentary adds to the conversation in a real-world way.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 5: Azra'il, Episode 02

2011-04-14T11:57:00.001-06:00

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Director's Commentary: Nothing to report, save to say, yes, that is a reference to O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Josh and Caleb Chapter 5: Azra'il, Episode 01

2011-04-12T10:04:00.001-06:00

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Director's Commentary: I pulled one of those "fast forward" narrative moments, to reveal that Josh had lived through the debacle I cliff-hung the last episode with, leaving Caleb's fate unstated. I don't think my motivation was being clever though: I was just sick of drawing the crowd, Igal, Moses, etc. I was itching to do something different, and was playing around with photo references, which I used to draw the first four and final panels. I used a photo background run through Photoshop filters for the final panel. I clearly went back to my burn and dodge approach, but it's more understated here. I think there was a month or two in between the last episode and this one, but I can't recall. What I remember is actually scripting this episode, then thumbnailing it, before finally drawing it rigorously at my drawing table, unlike the whole series to date, which had been drawn quickly on coffee breaks and stolen moments throughout the day.

I hate that I called the chapter "Azra'il," which is the transliterated name of the angel of death in Arabic, since I'd later be referencing the Shekinah. It really should have been called Shekinah.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 10

2011-04-11T08:08:00.002-06:00

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Director's Commentary: I don't have many good things to say about this page. It was clearly a rush job, both at the level of initial line art, and in the coloring. I like the first panel and the mob, but I'd definitely re-color Igal and re-draw the last panel (aside from Josh talking out the side of his mouth).

Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 10

2011-04-08T22:24:00.001-06:00

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Director's Commentary: I think I should start calling this "midrash," the Jewish practice of reading between the lines of a sacred text. Or maybe that's what I'd call the whole series of this web-comic plus the Ezekiel comic Nathan Thomas and I did together, since neither is totally faithful to the original text.

I really like this page - it definitely raises the issues that started running around in my head as I was reading the Biblical passages associated with this narrative. "Everyone's been partying with a golden calf! Joshua, pick up your sword and kill everyone who was doing it and isn't sorry!" And Joshua obeyed. I'm pretty sure he had to kill some friends that day. One of the things I'd definitely change if I had the chance would be to give Josh a beard. I don't like that I've unilaterally drawn the "bad" guys with beards. Not a good policy when you're drawing a story taking place in the middle east, even if you're only viewing it as a mythic space. At the time, my thinking was to offset Josh and Caleb as being young men, even though they were in their 40s, according to the text.

The flashback image was drawn independently of the actual paneled art, and then combined in Photoshop when I colored it. There's a full-color image of it I'll post in the "DVD extras" when the series wraps up.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 09

2011-04-07T20:57:00.003-06:00

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Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 08

2011-04-06T10:54:00.002-06:00

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Director's Commentary: Mostly just little things here - I love the stars above Igal, and the unfocused background crowd behind Caleb in the fourth panel. I'm sure a scholar of comics could say more about my composition, but I feel like it's pretty good for just going on pure instinct and years of reading comics. Aside from the sudden disappearance of Igal's name brand logo, I love it.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 07

2011-04-05T08:19:00.001-06:00

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Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 06

2011-04-04T15:31:00.001-06:00

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Director's Commentary: My villain, Igal, is the ultimate opportunist: first, he uses the grapes as proof of the giants - obviously, a land with giant grapes must produce giant people. Then, when Josh and Caleb produce the spear, it's further proof - a spear that big could only be thrown properly by a giant. He's unstoppable. Unfortunately, I neglected include why he's relentlessly dissuading his nation to stay out of the Promised Land. I include that in the "deleted scenes" from Chapter 2.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 05

2011-04-01T08:12:00.001-06:00

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Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 04

2011-03-31T08:09:00.001-06:00

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Director's Commentary: Things I'd change if I were doing it all over again: Moses' beard on the page immediately prior, so it matched how it looked on this page. Most of the characters had a continuity to their appearance, but Moses goes through some radical changes from page to page. This is the joy of doing a web comic in your spare time when your time isn't so spare.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 03

2011-03-30T18:00:00.001-06:00

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Director's Commentary: I love the ongoing joke of the crowd getting misinformation from each other, especially the giant grasshoppers. 'Nuff said.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 02

2011-03-29T22:19:00.002-06:00

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Director's Commentary: I've been listening to Karen Armstrong's lovely book, The Bible, which approaches the history of scripture as a sort of biography. In many ways, I find it more comforting than our pastor's recent sermons on the Bible, which were a rudimentary introduction to Bible study for lay people. While I applaud the intention, he wasn't telling me anything I hadn't read or heard before. Nevertheless, wanting to be on track with where the rest of the congregation is, I've been focusing some of my reading on either the study of scripture, or in this case, the book itself. Armstrong's history of the development of the Judeo Christian texts included two thoughts that put my mind at ease somewhat regarding re-posting Josh and Caleb. The first was that consensus among Biblical scholars of the Jewish scriptures is that Israel's invasion of Canaan likely didn't happen, so I'm working in mythic space. Second, the presence of violence in scripture is a testament to the way the Judeo Christian texts present the warts-and-all picture of the development of the Bible and the people who call it sacred. Accordingly, we can view the texts advocating violence as moments when we missed the point, which is some of what I was doing with Josh and Caleb. What started as an adventure will end with ambivalence about how things play out. So while that isn't where I was at when I wrote it, I'm glad to be reflecting on it again, in light of where my journey has taken me. I guess I'm thinking of Josh and Caleb as midrash, the Judaic "reading between the lines" of scripture.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 4: The Return, Episode 01

2011-03-28T13:42:00.003-06:00

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Director's Commentary: All of "Chapter 4: The Return" was colored while working the summer as staff pastor at Greenbay Bible Camp in Westbank, BC during the summer of 2002. I can't recall if the line art was already produced before I went out, or if I worked on it while I was there, but the completion of so many strips over a two-month period is due largely to the encouragement and support of Nathan "Monkey" Thomas, who allowed me to steal time at his desk and use his Intuos tablet to colour the strips. Nathan is now an animator out on the West Coast who was working media at Greenbay that summer. He was a strong motivator for me, and spurred me on to create better jokes as well. Accordingly, I'm dedicating Chapter Four to Nathan.

This page is definitely inspired by Dave Sim of Cerebus fame yet again. I loved the use of many quasi-anonymous speech balloons in his crowd shots during the Church and State issues of Cerebus, and loved using that technique with the wandering Israelites, whose bitching and moaning during the journey to Canaan takes on comedic proportions even in the Pentateuch.

I can't recall why I decided this all had to happen at night, but it turned out to be a very smart choice in the next chapter, as the night provided the perfect contrast to what invades the night. It certainly wasn't intentional, and by the time I was done the summer, I was pretty sick of my smurfy Israelites.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 03: It's All Who You Know, Episode 03

2011-03-25T10:04:00.002-06:00

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Director's Commentary: Again, I want to state very clearly that I was viewing the writing of this series as though Josh and Caleb were a D&D Warrior and Rogue/Ranger. To equate what I'm doing here with the current situation in the Middle East would be to miss the point, akin to history buffs who cited all of Zakk Synder's errors in filming 300. Frank Miller's 300 is not history - it is a historical moment recast in the tradition of the sword and sandal heroic epic. I think the real-world implications of a moment like this is far more complex than shown here. I find it unlikely that everyone in the land of Canaan was evil. But in the context of any theophany, there are sides taken and positions drawn up. I'd be less black and white in the delivery of such ideas today.
And let's face it, it would spoil the joke here, which is that Josh and Caleb have been discussing how Adonai is caring for them while unbeknown to them, that very thing is taking place.
People who know campfire call response games may also recognize the inside evangelical joke of the onomatopoeia in the third panel: "I said a Boom Chikka Boom!"

Josh and Caleb Chapter 03: It's All Who You Know, Episode 02

2011-03-24T17:06:00.002-06:00

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Director's Commentary: So finally we see the beginnings of a simpler approach to colouring emerge. It will really see its day in the following chapter, but I'm using a lot less overwrought dodging and burning at this point. I love the background of Caleb's memory and Sinai, and although it never occurred to me at the time as a moment of intent, showing the boys walking over the chasm to illustrate its depth sets up the action on the next page.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 03: It's All Who You Know, Episode 01

2011-03-23T08:12:00.002-06:00

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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: In terms of chapters, this one is my favorite. It's concise, and has a good Loony-Toons style visual gag. If I consider the ideas contained in it in a real-world geo-political sense, I find it troubling, but at the time of writing, I wasn't making those considerations. Again, I was treating the story of Josh and Caleb a bit like a D&D campaign, not as commentary on the current situation in the Middle East. A note of trivia: the chapter title, "It's All Who You Know," is not only a reference to the cliche, but I'm guessing it was also a reflection of what I was listening to at the time. The Newsboys had a song called "It's All Who You Know" on what remains my favorite release by them, Take Me to Your Leader.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 2: Spies in the Land Episode 04

2011-03-22T18:55:00.000-06:00

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Director's Commentary: As punchlines in this series go, this is one of my faves. I was also very happy with bring able to utilize a digital comic cheat of repeating the same images over and over, but moving them. I did one image of Josh and Caleb, one background, and then moved the characters and inserted speech bubbles. It was a wonderful way to get this strip done under pressure. What's equally funny is that, unable to rely on image, I had to rely on text for humour.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 2: Spies in the Land Episode 03

2011-03-21T05:00:00.004-06:00

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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: This joke might be too old to be funny at all. It's a play on the Team Canada ads that were on television when I was writing these first Josh and Caleb episodes. Caleb's line mirrors the "we have a bunch of Team Canada shirts," followed by the punchline, "and a whole can of whoop ass!" It's so old I can't even find a YouTube video of it. Ah, the joy of the Internet. Trending today, gone tomorrow. I love this page in terms of composition. I'm also happier with what I'm doing with the colour here than in the previous episodes.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 2: Spies in the Land Episode 02

2011-03-18T08:03:00.002-06:00

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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: I think I've complained about my approach to colour enough - you get the idea. Nevertheless, this is one of my favorite pages in the whole series. I drew it while sitting in a session at a Teacher's Convention, bored out of my tree. I love the grape gag, and was very happy with how the colour approach works in the fruit explosion. This is also one of the few pages where you get a good look at Caleb's quiver, which says in a pseudo-Hebrew font, "Ass-kicker." I don't think I kept that up for later episodes, but I'd clearly adopted some sort of colour chart, as the colour of Caleb's top-knot holder is consistent. Sadly, its location in the last two panels, isn't.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 2: Spies in the Land Episode 01

2011-03-17T11:47:00.004-06:00

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Director's Commentary: I was definitely inspired by Dave Sim's approach to panels and progression in Cerebus here. Clearly, they've descended from that precipice we last saw them on. Somehow, in my brain, the Promised Land is just a climbing maneuver away.
The whole no-talent ass clown reference was a real risk at the time: at the time, my resume was useless outside church circles. I've have that corroborated by an HR manager. My multimedia developer's certificate didn't help either: the dot com industry was hurting, and there weren't many good entry level jobs in media at this time in Edmonton. So I knew I'd be applying for church jobs again at some point. While I was aware of this, I chafed at it. Putting this sort of humor into a story taken from the Bible was me working out my irreverent reverence, being simultaneously still very tied to my faith, while wanting to distance myself from most expressions of it. The Gathering was comfortable with such an approach, but it would haunt me later when I came up dry in my job search later that year.
Nevertheless, it's one of my favorite jokes, and will receive further mileage later in the series.
A note on the art: the line art was a lot better on paper, but I was toying with using the "blur" tool over the line art to make it look more painterly. It doesn't work well with the cartoon approach though, nor does my overwrought use of shadow and highlight. It looks crazy. I wouldn't colour this way again. That said, the grapes look fantastic, and I like the blurred background to imply distance.

Josh and Caleb Chapter 1: The Mission / Episode 02

2011-03-16T08:24:00.004-06:00

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Director's Commentary: As you can see, I'm already using a web-comic trick, by recycling images I've already worked on in that last panel. Despite it being one of the first, it's always felt a little iconic of what I was going for with Josh and Caleb. Two friends on the edge of a precipice, gazing into the distance - the call of adventure! And although I'd never do it that way now, I love the way the sun looks in the panel when it finally comes up over the horizon. I was playing with the tools of Photoshop - I'd make a far more consistent background to all of these panels, and then just move that image around to get difference.

Josh and Caleb, Chapter 1: The Mission / Episode 01

2011-03-15T08:42:00.002-06:00

DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: The top image was the first one I drew of Josh and Caleb. I did a lot of sketching while working as a Teaching Assistant with at-risk kids in an elementary school, and came up with the design in two or three passes. I was attempting to play around with Japanese-style comic art, so it was a departure from my own style. It took me until the fourth chapter of Josh and Caleb to make the approach my own, and since then, I've continued integrating the way I used to draw characters (more lifelike) with this clean-line approach (more stylized).

I was simultaneously learning how to colour art in Photoshop, so in addition to some sloppy artwork, there is some sloppy colouring in these first pages. I was far too enamoured with the burning and dodging approach of light and shadow, but found tutorials on channels and multiplying brushes overwhelming. At the time, I still thought I could punch this whole thing out in a season of Lent, and was working with speed, not accuracy.
Despite these problems, there are still items I love about these opening frames: Igal,the guy in orange next to Moses in the group shot felt like a stroke of genius - name brand clothing from the Bronze age; establishing Josh's "gee-whiz" idealism and naivety next to Caleb's ironic cynicism; and the opening shot, which was a photograph made to look more cartoony. At the time, it felt like cheating, but I've since learned that many of the artists I admire use these approaches now. It certainly provided a foundation for the rising sun as back light.

I've lost the original Photoshop files of these images, so if demand proves high enough and this ever goes to print, this will all get recoloured. It would be good to have the opportunity to fix what I don't like about these pages, making the colouring more consistent with the end of the series. But as a progress chart, it certainly tells me how I improved over the course of producing the strip.

Josh and Caleb

2011-03-10T22:16:00.050-07:00

Ten years ago, I decided to try my hand at making a web comic for the Gathering's website. It was called Josh and Caleb, and was intended to tell the story of the Twelve Men who went into the promised land as spies. Originally meant to be a brief series of strips over Lent, it ended up running at my site for years, while I sporadically updated the story. I had periods when I was more prolific than others, and for one summer the strip was regular like clockwork.

My intention had been to warm myself up for drawing the web comic I really wanted to produce, a steampunk retelling of Cinderella called Cinder, which never made it past design sketches and story outlines. Josh and Caleb gained a momentum based upon fan response: people were reading it, so I felt compelled to finish it. And "finish" I did, coming at least to a moment of closure with the series before abandoning it completely during my graduate studies. However, there were three pages I had penciled and inked in the summer of 2005. They're scanned into the computer, and one of them received colour two and a half years ago. That leaves two to go. Seems like as good a time as any to wrap it all up and re-release it here at the blog. With the website going down in late '09, Josh and Caleb lost their online presence: this Lent will restore them.

These character cards were created several years into the process, after my hand really had warmed up, but they're not indicative of the art I was producing at the start of the series. I was Alexandra Junior High's "Most Promising Art Student" many moons ago, and had dreams of being a graphic artist. However, in 1989, my guidance counselor wasn't sure where to send a student who wanted to be an artist and filmmaker. Besides, many people were encouraging me to go to Bible School and become a pastor, and I was idealistic and stupid enough to think I could do drama and art in a Baptist church. Over the next ten years, I learned the hard way that Baptists like their art with scripture on it, and by art I mean nature photography. When I consider what forty-year old Mike would tell sixteen-year old Mike, it always goes something like, "Don't go to Bible school - attend studies in Vancouver at..." and then I either put in a design college or a film school. Hell, I'd tell sixteen-year old Mike to study art at Grant MacEwan here in Edmonton over Bible school.

So Josh and Caleb stands as the only comic I ever finished (providing I get those last two pages up), and despite the clunky start artistically, an achievement I'm very proud of. It probably isn't the greatest material to be working from in this fractured, war-torn world, and the artwork isn't my best - I was experimenting with manga-styles, but I get something a little closer to Disney in the process. Still, I think most of the jokes are good, and I really like my lead characters. The idea I had in my mind was to render Josh and Caleb younger than they are accounted as in the Pentateuch, as extreme-sports adventure junkie types. Not patriarchs, but two ordinary guys who like to have a good time, who are sent because they're good in a fight. In Dungeons and Dragons, Josh is a fighter, and Caleb's a multi-class rogue/ranger. It's a good indication of where I've been spiritually, as well as where I'm going. I think Josh is the voice of my spiritual journey, starting out ready to do as told, and ending with some questions.

One of the themes of Lent is wilderness journeys, and the stories of Israel in the desert are often material for homilies. So let's take a desert journey together, along with Josh and Caleb.

Seven Sacred Seasons: Lent

2011-03-10T11:29:00.003-07:00

Lent begins today. Officially, yesterday was Ash Wednesday, and while many people start Lent on Ash Wednesday, it's really post-service, post-ashes-on-the-forehead that you begin Lent. At the Gathering, we started Lent after our service was over.

The first year we did Lent, people were taken aback: "I didn't realize the Gathering was Catholic." Of course we weren't - a radically congregation Catholic church would be an even more bizarre phenomenon than a radically congregational Protestant church. No minister? No ecclesiastic hierarchy? No, we definitely weren't Catholic, but we really weren't very good Protestants either.

In our search for post-denominational structure, we turned to the more traditional approaches to frame our year. Lent and Easter, Advent and Christmas, were the two primary seasons we started with, then worked out from there. What was wonderful about these holidays was that they came ready made. We could get liturgical resources for our services for Lent without difficulty.

Helping our primarily Evangelical congregation understand the value of Lent was another matter entirely. "What's the point in me giving up coffee for 40 days? How will that bring me closer to Christ?" In our first Lenten experiences, our reply was how the sacrifice was symbolic of Christ's time in the desert, a minor fast with major implications. In later years, we challenged our group to find things to sacrifice that went beyond coffee or chocolate. In those years, I gave up swearing, or listening to music that didn't reference my faith. One year stands out, when we encouraged the congregation to ask others what they ought to give up. That was the year I gave up giving unsolicited advice. I took that a step further the next year by practicing reticence - I did not speak unless spoken to. It drove a few people crazy, as my normal mode of conversation is loquacious. It was a great experience - I felt the burden of responsibility to carry a conversation lifted. I no longer felt the need to fill in the uncomfortable silences. It was great.

Some folks innovated by adding a spiritual discipline to their life. By doing so, they ended up sacrificing as a latent benefit. A friend chose to read through the Gospel of Matthew over Lent. Another endeavored to actively encourage one new person each day.

We celebrated Lent with austere decor in the physical space we worshiped: our slides were less colorful, less bombastic. Our song choices were focused on the desert experiences rather than the celebration. One year, we collectively gave up singing along in the worship times - the band did all the music instrumentally, as a time of contemplation. When we finally got to sing at Easter, it was such a welcome change, to finally open our mouths and sing along - the celebration wasn't contrived at all.

This year, as the Lenten journey begins, I'm still uncertain about what to give up. My job and children demands sacrifices of me. Don't I deserve to just keep suffering as a parent and busy academic? Do I really need to take away one more thing I enjoy for the period? So I'm likely engaging in an additive approach this year: reading a spiritual classic instead of reading for pleasure. It might be wimping out, but given that I haven't practiced Lent since the Gathering ended in the fall of '08, I'll be satisfied with baby steps.

As always, feel free to steal the slides for wallpapers or for your own worship experiences. I know it's a bit dated, but this was playing off Nike's "Just Do It" marketing strategy.

Ash Wednesday: Liturgies

2011-03-09T11:25:00.004-07:00

Here are a few of the slides I made up for Ash Wednesday and Lenten services at the Gathering. Use them as a wallpaper, or feel free to snag them for your own use in an Ash Wednesday service. I'm doing my best to track down the resources I got these liturgies from.

Seven Sacred Seasons: An Overview

2011-03-02T08:49:00.005-07:00

Two years into The Gathering’s history, the Crash forced our hand, accelerating an idea we'd been toying with: to go from a single leading pastor to a radical congregational approach to leadership, and consequently, church work. Initially, this resulted in a sporadic, haphazard series of services where music and preaching were unconnected: without some sort of guiding idea, worship leaders and speakers alike found choosing a path difficult. Coming out of a Baptist background, we were used to the sermon being the focal point, but were needing a model that would serve all levels of worship, including the speaking themes, so that volunteer preachers had an anchor for their preparations.

In addition to the congregational model, we'd been interested in liturgical approaches to worship, particularly Celtic modes, as Celtic worship was in vogue at the time. What emerged was the Gathering's Seven Sacred Seasons, a liturgical church year broken into seven sevens: seven “sacred seasons,” each centering on a different theme and lasting roughly seven weeks. While our liturgical year was intended to begin with Incarnation Season (Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany), it always felt like it began in September with Gathering Season. I've organized this explication of the seven seasons to begin with Carnival, since that's how the calendar year would begin as well. The following is a lightly edited version of what our Sacred Seasons document looked like:

CARNIVAL (From the celebration of EPIPHANY to the beginning of LENT on ASH WEDNESDAY)
In many countries, Carnival is a time of merrymaking and celebration, often done in ways which the church does not approve. The Gathering sought to introduce Christians to the concept of holy parties, or celebrations. In winter the weather can be miserable for long stretches of time. Traditionally, Carnival is a season for music, plays, art, and also for wild behavior and wearing disguises. Worship during this season was of a festive nature, often unpredictable, ranging from beach parties, comedy improvisation, dance music as worship (both by a dance-music-worship team on several occasions, and once by a DJ), and masquerade.

LENT and EASTER (Starts the service after ASH WEDNESDAY, ending on EASTER SUNDAY)
During Lent, the Gathering encouraged our faith community to give something up as a sacrifice to Christ, modeling his sufferings in some small way. Over the years, everything from coffee to video games to character traits were given up for Lent. One year, we asked each other to suggest the thing we ought to give up: I gave up giving unsolicited advice that year. During Holy Week, we held a series of worship services, dramas and vigils, contemplating the crucifixion and resurrection. A "real-time" vigil of the Cross was observed several times, where we would begin contemplations hour by hour of Christ's Passion, using James Bishop's The Day Christ Died as a guide. Easter Sunday was the only time of the year the Gathering meets on a long weekend: since we were run by volunteers, we gave our workers long weekends off.

PENTECOST (50 days following EASTER SUNDAY, until PENTECOST SUNDAY)
Also called the Easter season, 50 days are a “week of weeks,” seven times seven plus one. Pentecost is 50 days to sing alleluia, 50 days to live as if God’s rule of justice and peace were finally with us. Because it is the beginning of Spring and people are thinking of being outdoors, the theme of Pentecost involves the Gathering going out “into the streets.” Major themes are the nature of the church and the Holy Spirit. We tried to incorporate more social justice into this season, but also took time to consider what it means to be the church. In later years, we used video teaching during this season to give our speakers a break, and to ensure we weren't just preaching what we all wanted to hear. It was a means of avoiding our teaching becoming "inbred."

CREATION (Pentecost Sunday to the end of August)
Since it is warm outside, the Gathering seeks to praise God for his Creation during this season. As a result, when weather permits, worship is held outdoors. During Creation, we often did prayer walks, utilizing labyrinths on a number of occasions. We held drumming circles, and did worship in city parks. In later years, we gave the community the summer off, as attendance was sporadic, and our volunteers became increasingly worn out. We held one other significant service in late August called the G-Arts Festival, which was a celebration of the community's creative gifts. People were encouraged to bring a creative display of any kind to present to the community. This included a wide range of expressions: salsa dancing, belly dancing, carpentry, antique collecting, poetry, music, visual art, scrap-booking, and card making are among the creative expressions I recall seeing over the years.

GATHERING (Beginning of September to the Canadian THANKSGIVING long weekend)
This originally was two seasons, bookending Creation Season, but it became simpler in later years to just have one: Gathering Season was a time of remembrance, when we looked back to our first services together. For many years, this was marked with a "Year Video," a music-style-video montage of clips, highlighting the prior year. It was also considered a time to introduce others to the Gathering, a season when we were more focused on newcomers than any other time of the year. During this time we explained the reasons why the Gathering practices Christianity the way it does. Notably, this season would work for churches that aren't called the Gathering, since this season fell on the time traditionally known as Harvest season, culminating in Canada with Thanksgiving.

ALL SAINTS (Canadian THANKSGIVING long weekend to the beginning of ADVENT)
Traditionally, this is celebrated as one day, but the telling of the Saints’ stories as inspiration seemed richer as a season, not merely a single evening. Since the Gathering held that all Christians are saints, All Saints was a time for sharing our stories of how God changed our lives, and how He has used us since that change. We also hear the stories of saints outside the Gathering, the ‘heroes’ of the faith,” from scripture or history. We also observed a sort of Halloween service, complete with costume party and a darker theme for the evening.

INCARNATION (From ADVENT to EPIPHANY)
Beginning four weeks before Christmas, and ending on the service closest to January 6, this season focused on more than just Christ’s birth: Advent, the time leading up to Christmas, could be about the traditional Nativity stories, or look toward the parousia, Christ's second advent. Epiphany, the story of the magi’s visit to Jesus, and Christ’s baptism are also included in this season. Christmas was considered, as it is in liturgical circles, only one event in the Incarnation Season. Most of the time was spent in anticipation of the celebration of Christ’s Nativity. Due to the Gathering’s emphasis on family, we did not hold a service on Christmas eve or day, but encouraged families to perform worship in their own homes, using the time to build their own communities.

Over the year of the Rabbit, I'm going to echo these Sacred Seasons in the content I reveal here at Gotthammer. Caffeinated Incorporated fulfilled the goals of Carnival Season - laughter and levity. We're about to enter Lent, and to observe that, I'm going to take the Lenten journey I started with the Gathering ten years ago with a web comic called Josh and Caleb. It was originally intended to be a little bit of media for the Gathering's web site, but it grew into its own thing, as many creative endeavors do. Each season thereafter, my posts will reflect the Sacred Season we're in. I've been missing the structure this liturgical year gave to my comings and goings, and want to reengage those rhythms, and share them with you.

Jesus and Jeet Kune Do: the art of authors and ass kicking

2011-02-25T06:00:00.002-07:00

Adapted from my notes for the opening of a week speaking to teens at a summer camp.

I recently read a tweet from @almightygod that read, "To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click "I agree."" Worse yet, I'd argue that when Christians do read the Bible, they read it like a software manual: they go to the index for whatever they're currently troubleshooting, read what they need to fix the problem, and then put the book away. There is, incidentally, an entire line of software manuals called "Bibles" - the Photoshop Bible, Dreamweaver Bible, etc. What this says to me is that we either can't be bothered to read the Bible, or we treat it like a technical manual.

I teach English, so I read the Bible like I read everything else - as a literary professor. That means when the Bible is telling me a story, I read it like it's a story. When it's poetry, I treat it like a poem. When the Bible uses symbolism, I don't treat it literally. When it's relating action, I read it as description of events, not necessarily prescription of moral/ethical behaviour.

What seems even more batshit to me is that we treat the life of Christ with as much respect. According to the Bible (which we do not read), Jesus is "the author and perfecter of our faith." This means that Jesus is like Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was a famous Chinese martial artist and actor in the 1970s who came up with a style of fighting called Jeet Kune Do. Not only did Bruce Lee write the book on Jeet Kune Do, but he was also the master of it. In other words, Bruce Lee didn't just write about kicking ass - he kicked ass too. Bruce Lee is a legend in kicking ass. And Bruce Lee trained a guy named Dan Inosanto in the art of ass-kicking, who in turn passed his knowledge of ass kicking along to Jeff Imada. Jeff Imada is the guy who trained Denzel Washington to kick ass while carrying the Bible in The Book of Eli, which brings us back to the point of this whole discussion. If you want to kick ass like Bruce Lee, you will read his book, and then train in the ways of ass-kicking. If you want to do anything well, you go to an "author and perfecter," and if you can't have the man himself, you'll settle for his book.

Now Jesus didn't write any books -- other people wrote books about his life, so to observe how he is the "author and perfecter of our faith," we need to look at those books, and hope they got things right. There's a verse in the Jewish scriptures, that reads "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Mica Christians believe that one of the clearest ways God has revealed how to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, is through the life of Jesus. And so this week, I want to talk about the life of Christ.

We won't have time to study it in detail, but we're going to look at some key moments. I hope they'll be like episodes of a television series you watch and then want to see the whole series. We're going to look at particular moments from four different books about Jesus in the Bible, which are often called Gospels - that means "Good News." Those books are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Some of these moments appear in all of the gospels, and so when there's overlap, we'll look at that, but a number of these moments appear in only a few, or maybe even only one of the gospels. I'm not interested in proving that any of this stuff ever happened. I don't think you need to believe that every moment in Jesus' life definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, happened, in order to understand him as the "author and perfecter of our faith." I also don't have any beef with people who think it all happened exactly the way it's written. My goal is to speak to both of those types of people, and I want you both to be able to walk away with something valuable. So I'm not going to be proving anything this week, although I might make reference to people who try to prove or disprove moments in these stories of Jesus.

I also don't want you to get the impression that because I say "stories of Jesus" I don't think they're true. Truth is a slippery concept, and often has little to do with proof in the way that I can prove that gravity is a law of nature. It's true that if I say "If I jump off the top of the stairs, I will fall." It's also true that I "fell for my wife" back in 1994. I would have an easier time testing the truth of falling down the stairs than I would falling in love. Love is harder to prove, but I'd be ready to get all Bruce Lee on your ass if you said I was a liar when I say "I love my wife." I use the term "Stories of Jesus," not to imply they're untrue, but because that is what they are. They are not a software manual. They are not even very good historical documents, at least by the standards we measure those things today. They are not how-to guides, or self-help manuals. They are stories about Jesus, meant to help us understand who Jesus is.

Furthermore, these stories are propaganda. Propaganda has a bad rap, because it's usually used to say something bad about another group, as in war propaganda from WWII, but it's really just "a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position" (wikipedia). We need to know that in advance, to understand that the writers of the Gospels had an agenda. They wrote these stories of Jesus for a reason. John's gospel is pretty clear on the reason: "so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:31 NIV). Matthew doesn't come right out and say it, but many scholars believe Matthew was writing to convince Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.

Those caveats aside, I want to talk about Jesus because I think it doesn't get done often enough. Christians say Jesus' name an awful lot, but they don't always seem to know anything about who he was or what he did, other than dying on a cross and rising from the dead, which is bizarre, because although the gospels do spend a good deal of time on those two events, they also devote a lot of space to what we refer to as his "public ministry." The gospels tell us little about Jesus' childhood, and nothing about his adolescence or early adulthood: we mostly read about the period of time when he traveled around, teaching his ideas and performing miraculous acts. And we get a good deal about his birth, in both Matthew and Luke.

I want to talk about Jesus because I believe He's the author and perfecter of the best way to live. That's what I think of Christianity as: the best way to live. I don't have all the answers, but from what I've seen, I like the answers Christianity gives. I've grown tired of reading what someone else thinks Christianity is. I want to get it from as close to the source as I can. So I'm going to the life of the author and perfecter of Christianity. If you want to kick ass like Bruce Lee, you will read his book, and then train in the ways of ass-kicking. If you want to live like Jesus, you will read his book, and then train in the ways of being like Jesus.

Have I Run Too Far to Get Home?

2011-02-23T06:00:00.004-07:00

Snapshot, 1992: Filling an overnight bag, getting ready to go to an in-city youth retreat sponsored by the church I grew up in, Temple Baptist Church. I am quickly recording "Would?" by Alice in Chains onto a cassette to listen to in the car. The lyric "Am I Wrong? / Have I Run Too Far to Get Home?" resonates in my head with ideas of sin and redemption, and the parable of the Prodigal Son. I view pop culture through the lens of my faith: I cannot see a film, hear a song, or read a book without attempting to relate it to my faith theopoetically.

That lyric has been haunting me lately. Lane Staley's passionate vocals plaintively asking if a line has been crossed, a line which forbids a return trip, the clichéd point-of-no-return. The story of the Prodigal Son suggests that there the possibility of return to the Father's arms always exists, and yet I find myself in an ongoing "dark night of the soul" unlike any I've ever experienced.

When I was a younger man, my dark nights of the soul were self-induced, brought on by a combination of a restrictive moral code and lapses into transgressive behaviour: in hindsight, they were mostly the natural outcome of trying to live under spiritual disciplines in my '20s. They were not moments of doubt in the nature of God, but rather doubt in my ability to live in the way I believed God wanted me to. What I experience now is far more difficult.

It's difficult because now it is about the nature of God. I'm pushing forty--I don't have the same opportunities for those transgressive lapses I once did. I'm not so hot-tempered, nor given to passionate whims.These doubts are not melancholic episodes. They are part of this season of life.

I did not come by these doubts suddenly. I did not have a bad experience and then turn away from the Church. I have a grocery list of train wrecks from my years in the Church. When people tell me why they've left faith or abandoned a particular church, I have to stifle a grimace, censor my own desire to say, "Pussy. I've got at least five stories like that one." But they are not the only reason I sit in the desert. I am in the desert because I slowly rejected aspects of the Evangelical-Christian subculture, becoming more and more honest with myself, until one day I realized I'd dropped nearly everything that used to define Christian to me. I don't believe in the complete inerrancy of the Bible, or a literal seven-day-Creation, and I think people who believe in either are stupid. I don't believe homosexuals are some uber-class of sinner. I support gay marriage. I refuse to hide that I read fantasy and horror and love it. I only recently began attending church regularly after a two-hiatus. I find it challenging to read my Bible devotionally. Real prayer is rare and sporadic.

I was like the frog in the boiling kettle, not sensing the problem until it became a crisis. But that's the other difficulty. I'm not terribly alarmed. After all, I'm not physically boiling - I don't feel pain, just a sense of loss and regret. I would like to believe the way I once did, but I don't. Worse yet, I don't know if that's because I've stopped believing, or if it's because I need to find a new way to believe.

I speak at a camp this upcoming weekend. The old me would have called them up and canceled, believing that my doubts render me a poor candidate for speaking about faith. I won't cancel: first and foremost because it's unprofessional; second, because while I have all these doubts, I haven't given up. So long as the prodigal wonders about going home, the possibility remains that he can return home.

Caffeinated Inc. Episode 07: The Christmas Special

2011-02-21T22:21:00.007-07:00

Caffeinated Inc. (pronounced fully - "Caffeinated Incorporated") was the Gathering's weekly sitcom in the first two years of our existence. To that end, these scripts predate the Year of the Rabbit I'm celebrating here, but are indicative of the sort of approaches the Gathering took toward expressing the Christian faith. They also formed the basis for my blogged novel, Magik Beans. I was the primary writer, but the characters and sometimes dialogue took shape in a improv-to-script approach I shared with co-stars Blaine Kehl and Marcia Hamm. I'll be posting all of our initial seven episodes in subsequent updates.

Director's Commentary: This was presented as a full production by recapping all the previous episodes and ending with this one. I've included it here as a separate episode, but if people were interested in performing Caffeinated Inc. as a production, drop me a comment and I'll send you the amended document, which truncates the time line of the previous episodes. This brought the series back to its roots, as a single production I wrote for a youth drama group some years prior. The storyline was a bit different, but the idea of the shop as setting was the same, as was the character of Meran.

(LIGHTS UP. Shop is bustling with activity, as the first strains of ‘Santa Baby’ are heard. SARAH enters, sings the song, ending by draping herself on CARL, who looks mildly uncomfortable. SARAH is clearly slightly intoxicated, holding a glass with rum and egg nog in it. The song ends.)

CARL: You know, with all the things I’ve seen lately, you’d think that wouldn’t catch me off guard.

SARAH: Why, what did you see now? The angel Gabriel? Are ya pregnant?

CARL: Ha ha. No, I did not see Gabriel. But, how shall I put it. . .?

SARAH: Put what?

CARL: I met someone the other night.

SARAH: A someone? What’s that supposed to mean?

CARL: A woman . . .

SARAH: Ooh! Carl met a girl.

CARL: It’s not like that.

SARAH: It never is.

CARL: Forget it. (He starts setting out a nativity scene.)

(ALAN and KIM enter.)

ALAN: Hello!

SARAH: (Coyly) Say, where were you two?

ALAN: At Chapters. We bumped into each other in the Eastern Religions section.

KIM: Did you know that Alan is a really avid reader?

CARL: Really?

(SARAH smacks him.)

CARL: Alan, have you ever read anything about angels?

ALAN: Sure, Sophy Burnham, Dante, what sort of angels are we talking about?

CARL: How many different kinds are there?

ALAN: Lots. Good ones, bad ones. Messengers, warriors. . .

CARL: I don’t think this one was a warrior. She didn’t even have wings.

ALAN: You met one?

CARL: Maybe. . . at any rate, she didn’t have wings.

ALAN: So she’s not a cherubim.

CARL: A what?

ALAN: There’s only a few heavenly beings mentioned with wings. Its actually Babylonian to have angels with wings. Lots of people who meet angels say they don’t know it until later.

SARAH: You believe Carl saw an angel?

ALAN: Why, don’t you?

SARAH: Seems a little strange, doesn’t it?

ALAN: Not really. It seems our little coffee shop is a regular earth node. It seems to attract metaphysical activity in copious amounts.

SARAH: What?

ALAN: A lot of weird shit goes on here.

(CARL nods his head contemplatively.)

CARL: Ever since Peter died.

ALAN: That could have something to do with it. Maybe Peter was involved in the occult. That’s how he was able to transport his spirit back to this plane of existence.

SARAH: (taking another drink) Speak English dammit!

CARL: I don’t think so. I found a Bible in ‘the box’.

SARAH: So you opened it!

CARL: Yeah. It was really anticlimactic. (He brings the box out onto the counter, opens it, takes out a Bible, a diary and a rosary.) That’s what was in there. This Bible, an old journal of Peter’s and a rosary. That’s it.

ALAN: Okay, so he was a Christian. . .

CARL: Probably.

SARAH: So what? My family’s Orthodox, I’ve never seen an angel, or a ghost. . .

(MERAN walks in.)

CARL: There she is!

SARAH: She who?

CARL: The woman I was telling you about.

SARAH: God Carl, you’re really getting desperate – she’s a bag lady!

MERAN: Hello Sarah.

SARAH: (To CARL) You told a bag lady about me?

MERAN: No, it was in his file.

SARAH: Pardon?

MERAN: Carl’s file.

CARL: I think she’s a federal agent disguised as a bag lady who talks in code as though she’s an angel.

MERAN: I am an angel.

SARAH: I’m overcome with the majesty of the glory . . .

MERAN: Don’t be a smart ass dear.

SARAH: A vulgar angel! This gets better.

ALAN: Sarah, open your mind. G. C. Lichtenberg said, “If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.” You already said yourself you’ve never met an angel, so quit acting like the expert on them.

SARAH: I’m not acting like an expert. . . it’s just preposterous to think that this bag lady is an angel.

MERAN: No more preposterous than celebrating the birth of God as a bloody, smelly, poopy baby.

CARL: Oh, that’s lovely . . . let me just adjust the Nativity. . .

ALAN: Actually, believing she’s an angel is a shorter jump of faith than Carl’s federal agent disguised as a bag lady who talks in code story.

MERAN: I see you’ve opened the box. How are you coming with your reading?

CARL: I’ve been pretty busy with the Christmas rush . . . but I don’t know where to start.

MERAN: Carl, this is too important to put aside . . . especially for the ‘Christmas rush.’

CARL: It’s not that big a deal. Its not a matter of life or death.

MERAN: It’s not, is it?

SARAH: Well at least this makes sense. An angel trying to get you to read the Bible.

MERAN: Well, you’re putting out the visual aides, why don’t you just read the Christmas story?

KIM: Yeah! My grandpa used to do that every Christmas Eve when I was a little girl.

CARL: What, you mean right now?

ALAN: Why not? It’s the Christmas season.

CARL: (Brings the Bible out from behind the counter.) All right. . . where do I look?

MERAN: Well, the book of Luke will probably be the best one to read.

CARL: You mean there’s more than one?

ALAN: Yeah, there’s actually two accounts of the birth of Christ. Matthew has the Wise Men, Luke has the shepherds . . .

MERAN: And the angels!

SARAH: Of course.

(CARL flips to the table of contents, then turns to LUKE.)

CARL: (Reading) In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth. . .

MERAN: Good old Gabe. He had such an amazing singing voice.

(SARAH rolls her eyes.)

CARL: (Continuing) . . . um, to a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

SARAH: You know, I’ve always wondered about that virgin thing. Why did she have to be a virgin?

ALAN: The word in the Greek sort of just means a young woman.

SARAH: What, you read Greek too?

ALAN: Some. But if I understand Christian belief, the idea attests God’s power over the physical realm. No sex, just--bang! And there’s the kid. It’s a miracle. How else could the double requirement of soteriology, simultaneous connection, and discontinuity be achieved?

SARAH: What!?

ALAN: The Christmas story is about God becoming human without being screwed up like the rest of us. Connection, but disconnection. God, but human. It’s a paradox. Besides, like I said, it’s a miracle.

SARAH: It’s just a story.

ALAN: No . . . it’s a belief. “A miracle is an event which creates faith. That is the purpose and nature of miracles—frauds deceive. An event which creates faith does not deceive: therefore it is not a fraud, but a miracle.” – George Bernard Shaw.

CARL: Do you guys want me to read the story or not?

KIM: Yes! Sarah, let him read.

SARAH: All right, all right. Storytime at Caffienated Inc.

CARL: Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. His kingdom will never end."

(JASMINE enters.)

JASMINE: Hi everyone!

MERAN: Hello Jasmine.

JASMINE: Uh. . . hi. Do I know you?

SARAH: This is Meran. She’s an angel. (winks conspiratorially)

JASMINE: Oh. Like on that TV show.

MERAN: I don’t watch much TV, but I’ve heard the program is based on actual files.

JASMINE: Right.

ALAN: Nice job on the renovation.

JASMINE: Thanks. I notice there’s a lot more people here today . . .

CARL: I’m reading the Christmas story.

JASMINE: But there are more people.

CARL: I’m reading about GOD.

JASMINE: Okay, okay. Did I miss much?

SARAH: Just the virgin and the angel thing.

JASMINE: Okay, so the annunciation.

SARAH: Excuse me?

JASMINE: I’m Catholic.

SARAH: I’m Orthodox, I didn’t know what that was.

JASMINE: I went to all my confirmation classes . . .

CARL: Shall I read to myself then?

JASMINE: We’re just waiting for you to get started.

CARL: All right then. Okay . . . (reading down) I’m going to skim here. . . a holiday, she sings a song, goes to see her cousin. . . cousin has baby. . .

MERAN: That’s all important too.

CARL: I’m sure it is, I just want to get the Charlie Brown Christmas parts. . . Okay, here we go. In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph. . .

SARAH: Where’s Mary at this point. . . ?

CARL: I’m getting to that. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

ALAN: So it wasn’t actually his home town.

MERAN: Ancestral home. People considered the home of their ancestors their home town.

CARL: At the rate we’re going here, we ought to be able to open our presents under the tree when I finish up!

ALAN: Sorry.

CARL: He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

SARAH: They already mentioned that! Why would they mention it again?

CARL: In case people kept interrupting while the story was being read? “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

SARAH: Convention was in town. (CARL shoots her a look.)

CARL: Hey, here we go. This is the Charlie Brown part.

ALAN: The Charlie Brown part?

CARL: Yeah, I played Linus in the Charlie Brown Christmas at our church when I was a kid. This is the part he recites after Lucy cusses Charlie Brown out for getting such a shitty tree. Let’s see if I can do it without the book. . . “And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night, and lo, an angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. But the angel said unto them, fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth, Peace, Good Will Toward Men.”’ That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.

SARAH: Very nice. What are swaddling clothes?

CARL: I don’t know, that’s just what it says.

ALAN: Swaddling clothes are strips of cloth you wrap a newborn baby in.

CARL: So Meran, were you there that night?

MERAN: All of us were required to attend. You should’ve seen the looks on those Shepherds faces!

SARAH: Oh, that’s it! Come on now! You don’t really think she’s an angel do you?

ALAN: Why not?

SARAH: She’s a bag lady!

CARL: Is it that she’s a bag lady, or is that you just don’t believe in angels at all?

SARAH: Why should I? I told you, I’ve never seen one!

ALAN: You know, that reminds me of something I read the other day. There’s this Canadian psychologist who artificially stimulated an area of brain tissue in volunteers, making them suddenly have mystical experiences. Another psychologist did the same thing, but with a different area of the brain, causing them to smell roses or hear conversations without external stimuli.

SARAH: What’s that got to do with anything?

ALAN: Well, the first guy’s research, the one where stimulation caused mystical experience, is often used in public debate to prove the fraudulence of mystical experience.

SARAH: So?

ALAN: Well, its just that no one’s ever used the other research to prove the fraudulence of roses and their smell. Same criteria for proof . . . yet people don’t want to believe.

JASMINE: Why do you suppose that is?

KIM: It’s like that “One of Us” song. If God had a face, what would it look like. . . and would you want to see, if seeing meant that you would have to believe. . . in things like heaven, and in Jesus and the saints and all the prophets. . .

MERAN: That’s true. If you saw my true form . . .

SARAH: Oh that I’d like to see.

JASMINE: Careful what you wish for . . .

MERAN: If I manifested myself in my true form, you’d end up like the shepherds did.

SARAH: What, in the Middle East?

CARL: With that charming segue . . . “When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”

JASMINE: So if you saw the face of God, or an angel, you’d feel compelled to tell people about it. Is that what you meant?

MERAN: My dear, when you meet an angel, you’re not supposed to keep it a secret.

ALAN: ’Tis curious that we only believe as deeply as we live.

SARAH: Well Carl, you seem to think you’ve seen the face of an angel. I don’t see much deeper living going on here.

MERAN: Give him time. Life is a journey.

JASMINE: I’m getting deja vu. I just stopped in to drop off some receipts for Sarah’s records. Is that all the story?

MERAN: As much as should be told tonight.

JASMINE: Then I’m out of here. Merry Christmas everyone.

ALAN: I’ll walk you to your car.

JASMINE: Thanks.

(SARAH and CARL and MERAN remain.)

CARL: Well, I understand all this business about seeing the face of an angel, and me having some responsibility, but what I don’t understand is, what are you doing here? I mean, the angels in the Christmas story had a mission. What are you here for?

MERAN: You’ve opened the box. You’ve even opened the books that were in the box. But why the box? Why did Peter give to you in death what he kept hidden in life? Why are the forces of heaven and hell converging on this coffee shop?

CARL: You haven’t answered my question.

MERAN: No, you’re right. I haven’t. Then again, maybe I’m just here to make Sarah tremulous.

SARAH: Well you’ve completed your mission. Go away.

CARL: Do you have someplace to stay Meran?

MERAN: In my Father’s house are many rooms. . .

CARL: I’m serious. Are you just going to end up in one of the back halls?

MERAN: I’ll be fine.

SARAH: Sure. How about I give you a lift to a shelter?

MERAN: If you think you need to . . .

SARAH: Delusional or not, there’s no reason to get yourself arrested . . .

(They exit)

CARL: Kim, I’m heading out, are you going to be okay to lock up?

KIM: I should be fine. (Pause.) I need to talk to you about something.

CARL: You’re quitting.

KIM: No.

CARL: You want a raise.

KIM: No.

CARL: More hours.

KIM: No!

CARL: A Christmas bonus?

KIM: Will you be quiet? This isn’t easy.

CARL: What is it?

KIM: I know what all that extra money Peter put away was for.

CARL: You do? What was it for?

KIM: It was for a women’s shelter. Peter used to help out at a women’s shelter downtown.

CARL: He did? Why didn’t he ever say anything about it?

KIM: I wasn’t ever sure, until tonight. And then it all fell together for me, and I understood. You see, I think the reason Peter never told any of you about the work he was doing in the inner city was because he wanted to be like Jesus. (she picks up the nativity Jesus and contemplates it as she speaks.) I mean, I don’t know if I believe any of this God business, but I sure know Peter did. And if the God he served came as quietly as this little baby, in a stable, then I’m not surprised that Peter never made a big stink about how he helped hookers and runaways get off the streets.

CARL: My God. And I spent all that money on a renovation. I am an asshole.

KIM: Not Carl, you’re not! The reason I told you all this wasn’t to make you feel terrible. It was because I saw how much money is coming in again. The shop is really taking off! And that means we can do what Peter did, only better.

CARL: I guess that’s what all this business about living as deeply as you believe was about. He really did. And we never had any idea. I always thought it was just the coffee shop. But it was so much more . . . Kim, how did you know all this?

KIM: Because when you read Peter’s diary, you’ll find out who I was.

CARL: Who you were?

KIM: I was one of those...people...One of those runaways. (There is an uncomfortable silence.) I won’t hold it against you if you don’t want to keep me on.

CARL: What? Why would I do that?

KIM: I used to be a prostitute, Carl.

CARL: Ex-prostitute from what you told me. Right? (She nods.) Then there’ll be no more talk about you getting let go. You’re staying, and that’s final. Come on, we’ll close up early. I’ll buy you a drink at O’Byrne’s.

KIM: Sure. (They grab their coats, and as they head for the door, KIM realizes she still has the baby Jesus.) I just have to put this back.

CARL: (Seeing what it is.) That won’t be necessary. I’ll – uh, I’ll put it back. I’m just going to shut off the lights and turn on the security. Wait for me outside.

( Kim goes outside. CARL turns the lights down, then looks at the little Jesus.)

CARL: I don’t know what this means . . . but I’m ready to try. I’m ready to live as deeply as I believe. Whatever that means.

(He places the figure back in the nativity and heads out. MERAN steps from the shadows, smiling to herself.)

LIGHTS DOWN