Our Last Christmas Pageant

My wife and I have participated in a fairly large scale Christmas Pageant for the last 11 years. It involves building sets, rehearsals, writing scripts, writing music, sound effects, stage effects, lighting, audio engineering, costumes, and putting it all together. This year we will retire from this particular creative process. My wife Karey has written a new script every year and this year she wanted to connect the influence of the philosophy of Jesus to its influence on various world figures including Jesse Owens, Amelia Earhart, and Martin Luther King, Jr. as part of why one might celebrate the birth of Jesus.

In the Pageant there are various moments that bring about all kinds of different emotions including tears, joy, sadness, and laughter. Most times something unexpected happens in almost every performance. In this particular excerpt from 2 years ago you can see how my youngest son Keith dealt with a falling pillar...



Even though this could have been a potential disaster, Keith was able to take the moment and make it enhance the performance. He was questioned a number of times if the falling pillar was actually part of the act. I think there is something to be learned when one contemplates how this might apply to life in general. Things that may look like disasters might actually have some opportunities for enhancement.

A number of years ago I realized that I was not doing what I wanted to do. I was not only working out of obligation, but was in conflict with what I believed to be the right thing to do. With this awakening I decided to leave what I was doing and begin doing what I found joy in doing.

What I realized was when I did what I found joy in, the quality of my work went up and instead of attracting clients and business to something I found little joy in, I attracted clients and business to what I liked doing. This seems so simple when I state it this way, but I think we as humans have a tendency to get trapped in single minded ways of seeing the world.

There is a great web site called TED: Ideas Worth Spreading that has a number of videos on different ways of seeing things. This particular video presents some ideas that show how our current educational system often robs us of our ability to think creatively.



This video really hit home for me as I have learned to remodel how I experience life. No longer is a mistake the horrible thing to be avoided at all costs and no longer is a falling pillar the end of the play.

A Christmas Pageant for us all

I thought I would share a little about what we have done as a family to find meaning this holiday season. This has come from a short dialog I had with good friends on an email list I enjoy. I have blended some of Garth Whitcombe's comments from our conversation. You can check out his music at therapymuse.com

Karey (my wife) and I have done work on the Christmas pageant for our local community for the last 12 years. (We like any story that supports the idea of peace on earth and good will to all mankind.) We have children and young people through high school age to do all the performing and much of the technical work. Karey writes and directs and I prepare the audio portion as well as play live transitional music to keep everything flowing emotionally. There's music for everything from mystical stars, exotic Wisemen, and scary King Herod.

We are very particular about the sound and the visuals because it takes everything to the next level. Not everyone is a Josh Groban or Beyonce, but with the right sound and visuals we have been able to produce something, using amateurs, that is very moving. We have been rewarded with seeing great transformations in the young performers as they have faced their fears and learned how to communicate with confidence and skill. Over 1500 people come to see the pageant to laugh, cry, and celebrate. It is a powerful feeling when we are in the back booth and we feel the audience begin to flow with us and join us on the journey we are taking them.

Dress rehearsal is pretty much a mess and yet when the actual time comes the performers rise to the occasion. They become transformed from goofing around teenagers and tired elementary students to Joseph, Mary, Wisemen, Herod, Shepherds, and Israelites for about an hour and a half. There is a magnitude to the story. Such is the power of myth.

This particular story involves risk, music, light, movement, and lots of emotion. The story involves ordinary people like Joseph and Mary in a grand mythical moment in time; a child that holds the promise of peace and healing; a great angry and jealous king; three curious seekers from the east. All great representations of deeply held desires, dreams, and fears.

"Each of us was born in a manger with no room in the inn and yet each of us was born under a bright star." Each of us has faced a King Herod, and yet been visited by Wisemen with gifts. "Part of the mythic journey is to retrace our stories to that moment of innocent promise and reclaim the gifts of peace, joy and love that we came to share." And that is what we wish to share with you with this brief narration of this particular Christmas Pageant.