I just got home from Troy, where I accompanied Mary Davis to do an "I was Just Kidding" show for some people/kids in a Jewish Congregation. After the show, which went fine though the audience was too quiet for the play to really work, Mary and I talked about the message in our show, what we were trying to convey to the kids. That was interesting, but not as interesting as the conversation that followed my beckoning to change the subject to Inherit the Wind, as I have the Sunday matinee to execute in two hours and ten minutes from now...
I asked that we talk about Inherit the Wind so I could get my mind on it. We talked about my character, Rachel, for a bit--how she's at a turning point in her life where she realizes that it's okay to ask questions and she questions some of the things that had been instilled in her by her (psycho, he's actually psycho) Christian Fundamentalist father, the town reverend. That's how Mary got to talking about the spiritual themes of our play. (Mary is the producer, btw).
She brought up a line that comes from the agnostic defense attorney, Drummond, about the religious figure/prosecuting attorney, Brady. Drummond criticizes Brady for believing in a God "Too high up and too far away." After Mary repeated this line, my brain started ticking. Drummond, at the last scene, reveals in this line that he's more spiritual than we are led to believe. I love the fact that he says this line, because I think it's really one of the major themes of the play. It's a theme in my spiritual life, anyhow:
Why do we have a tendency to shove God back into that special room of the temple, where only the highest priest can interract with Him, when, through Jesus, God has made himself accessable to us? Dale Batten always brings up what a wonderful thing it is to know that now WE are the temple of God, that God created us to hold his very spirit; that no longer do we have to prepare ourselves, outwardly, to enter the Holy of Holys, (Holies? haha) to interract with our God. Jesus came to us, died for us, and now lives in us... some of us believe this, so why do we have a tendency to try and send Jesus back to his room while we wait outside and try to make ourselves worthy of Him? His resurrection has made us worthy of God, worthy enough to have God reside in us.
Which brings us back to Inherit the Wind. At one point, Drummond asks Brady where Cain's wife came from, and Brady says "I don't think about the things I don't think about." Here, Drummond drills Brady because he wants him to think about the things he believes. I get this Brady answer sometimes, from some people. "He's God," is their answer to my questions, "He can do whatever He wants." But do we not believe that God wants to think about the things that He does? It seems that our faith would call us to question, because, in faith, we believe that God has the right answer. To me, my relationship with Jesus always goes back to the fact that Jesus is real, He's alive, he has a personality (He's a person) for me to get to know, and he wants to have Fellowship with me. He wants me to communicate with Him. A huge part of communicating, of most deep conversations, is asking questions. I want to know Jesus more so I ask Him questions.
I think bad communication with God is when we ask Him questions and wait for Him to give us the answers we already know (I do this constantly...) First of all, that's not having faith that God is a very interesting Being, and second of all, it's not having faith in the sovereignity of God. If I could only keep in mind, when I ask my questions, that God is the Lord, the Creator, and He's sovereign, then I might find clearer answers to these things that frustrate me about my faith. If I could only figure out how to trust God for His answers when I ask my questions...
So, I guess that's why I think Inherit the Wind is a good play. It does not try to answer the question of how we came about (or, it shouldn't, anyway), but urges people to think things through. And as a Faith-based person, I should not be offended by Inherit the Wind's recommendation that we take advantage of our right to think, but be grateful for it. Because, through Jesus, I have been granted a right to ask God questions and to trust His answers.
And I had to skip church today to do the I Was Just Kidding Show...
