Life moving on

It's surreal how, no matter the tectonic upheavals in politics--no matter how truly unprecedented in US history the kind of showdown between the President and the House is--life goes on. The week ends.

I'm tired and a bit down, so I'm popcorn-ing thoughts here tonight.

Tonight's performance, our third to last, was off. Several folk in the audience rivaled the rowdiest middle schooler matinees tonight. Several phones went off, often for long periods of time. One person even answered her phone, whispering violently, and making her way up the aisle and out the door. Lots of inappropriate laughter from Catholic high school boys (apparently).

Sometimes, in my darker moments, I think theatre and democracy share the same major problem: people.

Being a person, I'm not exempt. I was pretty off tonight. The screw-up fairy descends willy-nilly, gracing lines I've never stumbled on before with novel reconfigurations. "Everyone's off just a smidgen," said our stage manager at the intermission. Blank spots appeared in places that had always gone smoothly before. We powered through, though. Theatre goes on.

I learned that friends of mine are expecting in November. The baby will need to have open-heart surgery immediately after being born. Then at four months. Then again at four years. This couple had already gone through an excruciating stillbirth with their first child. Their second is thriving. This would be their third.

I have nothing useful to offer aside from my prayers. God of all, Lord of the lost and the found, the rescued and the forsaken, put the little one and my friends in the center of your care. I ask for miracles. Work through the doctors and surgeons. Or work through supernatural intervention. In my helplessness, from the space the pity and fear that is being a person, I can only implore: save them.

Help them and all of us in dark times. Be with even those who inspire my anger, who seem from my limited perspective so rude but who may be going through something unimaginable. You know their stories, their fates.

Bless them, bless us, help us.

Move life on.

JF