How do you solve a problem like Maria…

I’m sorry; that had nothing to do with this post.  I don’t know Maria, but I’m sure she is capable of dealing with her own issues.  It’s just that I happen to be writing this from backstage at The Sound of Music, a show that my daughter and I are involved in.  I never would have heard about this show, much less been in it, if not for my daughter. I owe you my thanks, Riss.  If I had missed this show, I would have missed out on a key element of my quest for A Life Worthy.

Hang on…let me back up a minute.

Carissa desperately wanted to audition for a play at LifeHouse Theater.  LifeHouse is a faith-based community theater near our home, and they do excellent family entertainment.  If my girl wants to act, this is the place to do it.  However, Christian or not, it’s a theater, and theater people are often freaks.  So Carissa got to audition on one condition—Dad had to be in the show with her.  That way, I could be in place to do the Dad stuff and cramp any styles in need of cramping.

We auditioned, we got in, and the journey began.

Theater is generally a world dominated by ego, and theater people are often a precarious mix of narcissistic and needy.  I was prepared to do battle against a whole host of spiritual and emotional bizarriosity on behalf of my girl.

Then I met these people.

My first impression was that these seemed to be genuinely nice folks, and that perhaps they wouldn’t gobble up my daughter after all.  My second, and enduring, impression was that these people had one overriding purpose in their lives—to worship God.

Worship is more than music; it is the giving of your life to God in such a way that everything you do is dedicated to Him, and the secular is thus rendered sacred.  I know this, but I have a difficult time making a go of it.  That’s the essential purpose of this blog—to find ways to make life worship.

From day one of this production, the cast has been encouraged to make the show worship.  No, The Sound of Music is not an overtly Christian piece of theater, but that doesn’t prevent it from being worship.  You worship when you give God your very best, for no reward other than the knowledge that you have served Him.  I have seen that kind of humility in this place, both on stage and off.  People who are “stars” in this show help with costumes, fix the children’s hair, and deflect praise for their talent to the Lord who gave it. People who were “stars” in previous shows push flats, set props, and swelter under costumes that erase their identities, all for the simple joy of being here and serving.  I’ve gotten a taste of that humility myself, watching my amazing daughter shine on stage while I move set pieces.

Pure joy.

“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”  Eph 4:1

I am called to be a husband, a father, a teacher—for the last few months I have been called to be a mover of benches and chairs.  Through this I have been reminded of my primary call—to be a worshipper of the Worthy One.  The life, the day, the hour worth living is the one spent in the attitude of Romans 12:1:

…I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

Thank you cast and crew, brothers and sisters, for the reminder.  The show is closing, but not really ending.  I will carry the lesson with me.