The Pseudo-Proposal

This made me smile. A near-proposal to a chica who was in my small group at Montreat one time. Yes, folks, this is yet another reason that I love Montreat.

Review: Rent

For those who take their Broadway with a little extra reality and a side of pop culture, Rent proves a welcome alternative to flappers and tap shoes. The brash honesty about life in Bohemian New York City, the unabashed exploration of sex and AIDS and heroin, and the non-sectarian, love-driven message of morality strike lots of people in a way much different from the other shows out there.

I am one of those people, and I have been thusly struck - by the stage production, that is. The film was something different altogether.

Granted, I understand that taking a monstrously popular rock opera - which, on stage, benefits from two acts and an intermission - and turning it into a believable movie with convincing dialogue is, to say the least, incredibly difficult. I won't pretend to know how I would do it better, but I thought some things were missing, and glaringly.

The opening scene (that is, the real opener, "Rent" - the film (cheaply, in my opinion) hooked the audience with the overpopular "Seasons of Love") lacked some of the frantic energy and bouncing between storylines that makes it exciting and convincing onstage (exchanges between Maureen and JoAnne, Benny and Allison were left out). The added spoken dialogue (and some added plot-enhancers - notably, the engagement party) seems forced, and also makes the "sung dialogue" true to the original rock opera concept seem slightly out of place.

It is, of course, exciting to see most of the original cast back playing the roles, and the new actors and actresses played their roles beautifully. And the storyline is much easier to understand in the film. But the film was less raw and less compelling. A valiant effort, a worthy film, but not the Rent experience we need - especially for those who don't already know the show.

Base and Ordinary

At the moment, I was unaware of its profundity, but one of my life’s most important events occurred early in my sophomore year in college. In an introductory lecture for a course called “Music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance,” our assignment was merely to sit in class and listen to a few selections, guessing at what each might mean. None of the examples was in English, yet it proved surprisingly easy to understand the subjects of the pieces, if it took a few guesses – the major idea, of course, being that the music spoke to us without the crutch of words.

I am struck by the role of religion in society. Those of us who believe and those of us who don’t are constantly at a war of sorts. We spend inordinate amounts of time arguing and speculating and wondering about what will happen when we die. Will it be just a grand transition to a better place, or will it just be darkness and decomposition – if that? I am convinced that our problem is that we spend so much time wondering what divinity we may or may not encounter in the future. I am as guilty as any of us might be, but this I believe: we are not enough concerned with the divinity we experience here. On Earth. Today.

Enter the role of the music anecdote: why is it that understanding the lyrics wasn’t necessary to get at the meanings of those pieces? Perhaps it was because all of us in the room were music majors and knew how to recognize the compositional devices that are traditionally used to convey certain emotions. The more convincing argument, though, is that something about the music spoke to our spirits. It is more sensible, if less logical, to understand that we have souls that speak languages beyond human comprehension, beyond altercations over God and Allah and Buddha and jihad and when you were “saved.”

Is there a God? I’m a Christian and I think so. But forget the stories of people being raised after the third day, of the world being created in seven days, and of Jesus riding on a white horse and defeating Satan in the ultimate fight scene. Let us consider those moments when we are convinced that we have souls and that they must be transcendent. Let us consider those moments where we understand that, if our lives are to have a purpose, there must be some sort of higher power. Let us consider the moments when the music strikes us so hard that we are left speechless and tearful, and we know it has to be a gift from Somebody Else.

This I Believe: there is a God, and he is smiling down on a world where his truth is revealed in more than just big, long books and religious rite. His gifts are here everyday, in the ordinary lives of people who have been richly blessed. We hear his meaning in the songs of our lives, base and ordinary.