Laurie Beth Jones Blog

Celebrating Joy and Wonder

The Christmas Play

Last Sunday I was delighted to behold the Christmas Play at a local community church.  The age range of talent was from four to sixteen.     As all Christmas Plays tend to do, this play had a part for everyone.  It was as if the playwright was instructed “Don’t forget about the donkey!”

This play was a bit unusual because the group had decided on a humorous updating of the Nativity.  When the words were read “It came to pass” two teens actually threw a football to one another.   When it came to the verse “And the angels were sore afraid” the angels started moaning loudly, and hobbling about like they had sports injuries.

We all guffawed, however, when the scripture verse was read “And Mary was delivered” because a five year old yet apparently very pregnant Mary came in standing up precariously on a UPS hand cart wielded by a teenaged angel.

As in all Christmas plays some of the narrators forgot their lines, and had to be loudly coached from crouching adults.

At one point, little toddler Mary, having been “delivered,” grabbed the baby Jesus doll by one foot  and dragged it thumping down the altar stairs as she sucked her thumb and climbed out of the Nativity scene, obviously having decided the fun was over.   Joseph, a child  like Mary,  decided it was his turn to climb in the manger, realizing that was where all the action was, and knowing a vacancy when he saw one.   At this point the parents and the director had to intervene, all while the narrator continued blithely on reading the Christmas story.

The talent in charge of the prop removal was a little distracted, so some props were left on stage and others that were necessary didn’t make it on time.

A trumpeter couldn’t grasp the trumpet easily as it seemed tangled up in the fishing line.  How the story of Joshua at Jericho and Jonah in the whale became part of the Christmas story is all part of the wonderful celebration of the old and the new, (and perhaps because there were more youth than angels needed, at which point the director decided to do time lapses and cut in scenes to establish the context, of course.)

Apart from the cognitive dissonance of seeing a pregnant five year old hobbling toward the altar, I had a very good time.

It seemed like a microcosm of life itself—missing trumpets and tangled lines….too many props or not enough… The image of the little girl dragging the baby Jesus doll by the foot thump thump thumping down the stairs tore at my heart strings.

I wondered how often I do the same thing to the Christ child as I go about my business.

How very patient the Lord is, indeed, with all of us in this Christmas Play.  How very insistent the Author was that we all could have a part in it, even as it comes to pass.

May this Christmas and Holy Day season be filled with joy and wonder– and trumpets– in all the right places.

Blessings to you,

Laurie Beth

Weightlessness

By Laurie Beth Jones

Two days ago I heard on the news that a commercial developer has produced a jet that will take select members of the buying public into outer space.  For a mere $250,000 one can purchase the experience of being freed from the bonds of earth, and be guaranteed at least two minutes of weightlessness in space.

It struck me that one could experience much the same phenomenon by using an old fashioned form of being called “faith.”   We are often exhorted in scripture to release ourselves from having heavy hearts, and being bound to the current form of things.  Having faith is a form of weightlessness, of suspension from the gravity of our current perceived reality, and moving forward into the vast unknown.

Yesterday I perused with great interest the “Many Worlds” theory of physics first posited by Hugh Everett more than 50 years ago, a theory that has now been made popular by the television series “Flash Forward.”  For further reference check out (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/manyworlds)

The author believed that based on the unpredictability of the position of an atomic particle at any one time, the probability exists that whatever could happen already has, and may in fact be going on in right now in invisible yet parallel realities.  That high school sweetheart you could have married but didn’t?  Don’t worry—maybe you did.  That road you didn’t take on the journey?  No problem.  At some level an additional, expanded you is perhaps traveling it right now.

I just love this stuff.  Rather than castigating scientists as heretics, I celebrate their attempts to explain our amazing universe, even though they often finally admit  “These are just theories because frankly, we simply don’t know.”

I remember Jesus saying things like “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”   “I have worlds to speak of that you cannot know.”   He was clearly a time traveler and shape shifter.   King David spoke of God knowing every day that was created for him, even before he existed.  How could that be?  How could an unlived  future already exist in the present?

Scripture alludes to John the Baptist being Elijah.   How did Jesus ascend into heaven, and walk through walls?   How did he raise people from the dead, and put coins in fishes mouths?  What did he mean when he said we will not marry in heaven, but be like the angels?   How come angels never seem to age?

How can God know our thoughts before we even think them, and answer our prayers, before we even pray them?

It led me to think that rather than us having the three dimensions of mind, body, spirit, perhaps there is a fourth dimension, called simply “Possibilities.”

When it comes to the concept of alternate realities, consider belief in the afterlife.  If I believe as I do that I will see my deceased father again, I accept somehow that he is indeed alive right now, somewhere I cannot see.   So when I dreamed recently that my father showed up wearing tennis shorts, driving a sports car, asking me what I wanted for the family barbecue, “Steak or chicken?”, I accept that this dream was perhaps an unveiling of a reality known by a Knower greater than me.

There is an undercurrent of mystery in scripture that continues to baffle, entice, and bewilder.

Sometimes I just sit and stare at the Hubble photographs, of nebulas rising and stars giving birth far beyond what we can see or even imagine.

We truly have an amazing God.  An amazing God has us.

There is a thirst and capacity for imagination in human beings that some religious groups too often ignore or dismiss, wanting to clamp down on what has been done and said, and enforce with great punishment or excommunication those who dare think beyond.   “Be like us.  Think like us.  Or else.”

How sad.

Did you know that it was the discovery of quantum mechanics that allowed television and cell phones to be invented?  Did you know that the cathode tube in your television connects with only one of the estimated one hundred thirty seven “energy waves” being poured forth?  That single wave that is captured is what allows multiple programs to show up on the screen.  What happens to the other one hundred thirty six waves that are not received?  Where did they go, and what are they transmitting?

Wow.  I just love to ponder these possibilities.  It makes me feel less weighted down with an inevitable decline into the grave.

My friend Catherine says she wants me put on her tombstone, not the dates she lived and died, but quite simply her name and dot dot dot…as she emerges into a new reality.

Jesus said “Tear down this temple and I will raise it up again in three days.”  ”I and my father are one, just as you and I are one…” he taught.  Eternal ever expanding life.  Indestructible.  Unfathomable.  Divine.

So while I commend the attempts of people to purchase their way into weightlessness, I could save them a lot of money.

I slip into my space suit every day when I contemplate the face of God.

***

What mysteries in Scripture do you love to ponder?

Who, if anyone, is trying to shut your imagination down?

Laurie Beth