In the birthing pains...

Oh my house was full of hacking cough-ers last night.  I mean, deep thick, no relief sounding terrible coughs!  A terrible cold has shook our home in the sunny dry days of June!  I'm next.  I've got a lump in my throat that feels like a marble.

Dave put Weston in our bed by the humidifier around 5 this morning and he shuffled off to the office bed, but I could still hear him.  

So this was not a restful, happy day at the Passion Play site.  Weston complained of ear ache again, only this time I didn't have the tylenol, so thankfully someone else had some children's brand and then two men in Pharisee costumes opened the scissor-open bag with an old drill staple!  Ha!  The wonders and ingenuity of little backstage emergencies. (Thanks, Kim.)

So I sat with a woefully gray and tired looking child, head in my lap and listened to a scene we were supposed to be in...  and they survived without us.  That is something I would never do in professional theatre, but having young kids somehow makes theatre less precocious and more of a luxury.  It is still pretty humbling to suffer through long weekend days with the flying dust and head coverings and just want to rip it all off and go swimming!!  Yesterday on our break we went again to the fountain.  I had a terrible tension headache with my sinus's infected, but thankfully Dave came and the boys played with Matthew and Serena.

And then there are the wild blooming cacti.  Yes, this is the week for them, apparently.  Just sticking out from the bentonite cliffs with spikes and a all of a sudden they've got a fluffy flower on top.

But I'm still having to adjust to blending in with the crowd and feel like I'm contributing.  I feel like I got into this thing because of the boys, but now, here I am, a member of the chorus, with responsibilities, covered from head to toe and feeling invisible.  I wonder what women back then felt like?

But then there are the moments that choke me.  Like all of us, just facing the audience, squared shoulders and standing still, like a museum of God's creatures on display and undeniably beautiful in our realness... and way up behind us on a hill, Jesus is being "whipped" again and again to the rumblings of a timpani and splash of the cymbal.  Those are the times where I know that I am worthy, I am telling a worthy story, and all my training and expertise are irrelevant when compared to the simple beauty of my humanity... which comes naturally!

Oh, my head is full of phlegm and pressure and my body is stiff.  My kids are whining and tired and want to quit, and we're struggling to hang on to the positives.  Sounds a lot like the play, a lot like every theatre project I've ever done, ... and a lot like life.

We're in the birthing pains of a new project.  The time when everything seems insurmountable and stinkin' hard.  The time when you just want out, and would easily bail if you had not been the one responsible for getting yourself into this mess.  Because the boys made the commitment, we don't want them to quit, but they are asking.  These are signs that something BIG is about to be born.  

After a few more pushes, that is.

(See them peeking out from under my "tent" at the site?)  That was our makeshift shelter during the Beatitudes.

Lord, help me.

Lord, help us all.