Good Shepherd Triumphs Again!

Well, Raven S. Wolf's Lamburger machine has once again been destroyed, thanks to "The Good Shepherd of the Outback." The original VBS curriculum and drama was written for COTS in 2008, but we resurrected it this year for our second "VBS in the Village," held at the Rec. Center at Economy/Crestview Village housing projects on the northeast end of Ambridge. Somehow, it seems, no one managed to take photos this year (the one here is me in my wolf costume from 2008), but Barbi Davis managed to capture the climax with her Android and post it to YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBUpM59cXqI&feature=share

Although the actors were not as prepared as I would have liked (and due to illness and work schedules we actually had to switch some of the roles from night to night), I think the dramas went well, and the kids were very engaged in the story of the Shepherd, the Hireling, the Lamb who went astray, the Sheepdog, the Predators, the Wooly Bullies and the rest of the flock. I dare say it's one of the best pieces I've written, and once I've had an actual Australian review the dialect and slang, I'm hoping to make it widely available in some fashion. Let me know if any of you are interested!

Paging Hooto Crunk

Those who know me, or at least those who knew me in my first 30 years, might be surprised I haven't commented on the recent Rapture debacle. The fact is, despite its being all over the mainstream news and fodder for high-profile comedians, I was barely aware of it; oddly enough, it was a friend's Facebook update pointing me to the Doonesbury comic strip that first caused me to try to figure out why the Rapture was such a hot topic all of a sudden.

I'd never heard of Harold Camping before May 18th, and didn't find anything compelling in his reasons for stating that the Rapture of Jesus' elect would occur on May 21st, so I basically ignored it. It was a full hour after the 6:00 pm (local time) deadline that it occurred to me to check and make sure I was still around, and I didn't bother calling all my friends to make sure they were still here, either.

Earlier in my life, I might have taken this more seriously.

In fact, as a teenager I was quite convinced that the Rapture would happen at any moment, and there were numerous times when I was excited by seeing a particular cloud formation, hearing what I thought might be a distant trumpet, or when I got a little nervous when someone was supposed to meet me somewhere and they were long-delayed. I especially remember sitting on the church bus, ready to leave for my first youth group retreat on October 6, 1973, when the youth pastor stepped on onboard and announced that all of Israel's neighbors had just launched a war against the beleaguered state. Having spent the summer reading Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth, I was CERTAIN we would NOT be returning from that weekend!

One can only keep that level of anticipation for so long, I suppose. And I guess I am fortunate that no one in my life ever tried to exploit my beliefs in any way (not that I HAD much of anything in those days to be bilked out of. And unlike Camping's narrow following and precise predictions (all based on some bizarre numerological mathematics and dating of incidents like the Crucifixion), the apocalyptic fever of my youth was widely held by the majority of evangelicals, from Hal Lindsey to Jack Chick (the artist of the poster featured here and numerous comic-book style tracts, many dealing with endtimes scenarios) to Pat Robertson to every youth worker I knew to every Christian singer I'd heard, all the way up to Billy Graham! In fact, it wasn't Lindsey who first brought to my attention the fact that there were a lot of Biblical prophecies still awaiting fulfillment, and that many of them seemed to be coming true IN OUR DAY! It was the Billy Graham film His Land, featuring Cliff Barrows and Cliff Richard.

What strikes me as most interesting in comparing recent events to the events of my youth is the fact that, back then, it seemed the whole Church was tuned into and agreed on most of the details of the pre-millenial Rapture doctrine, and made fun of the unchurched, non-Christians who disbelieved it. I especially remember a very creative and funny Christian comedy album by a group called Isaac Air Freight which had a skeptic named Hooto Crunk give an "Editorial Reply" in which he ridiculed the station for endorsing the Rapture. The joke is, that when he finishes recording his piece, all the Christians at the station have disappeared. The clear consensus within evangelical Christendom was, "We're in the know, we all believe this, and pity the fool who doesn't agree with us."

Last week, it seemed clear that the "facts" of the Rapture doctrine were common knowledge to those inside AND outside the church, and the bulk of evangelicals I know or know of were saying, "We all--Christian and non-Christian--know about this, none of us believe it--at least not in the way it is currently being presented, and pity the fool who DOES!"

What a difference 35 years can make!

"Pretty-lookin' People"

My daughter, who is "terrified" by thunder, other loud noises, and many other minor things in nature, has no fear of people. On the one hand, this is rather nice; on the other hand, it makes things difficult for me as a parent. The other day, we started on a walk and remembered we needed to go back up to the apartment for something. There was some activity going on at the banquet hall across from our apartment, and a group of men were standing by the trash cans immediately across from our door. My daughter wanted me to go back upstairs by myself and leave her down on the sidewalk, but I insisted she accompany me inside. This led to a bit of a tantrum and long debate over "What's wrong with PEOPLE!? They're not going to KILL me! And if they try to tie me up, I will just run away!" I never said anything about them killing her or tying her up, and I had to admit that probably they were fine people and would not want to do any of that. But I still did not feel it was particularly safe to leave an 8-year-old girl unattended on the curb where I couldn't see her when strange men were hanging about.

I was still wondering where I got MY sense that people were dangerous from, when a friend informed me that yesterday was the anniversary of the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde. Suddenly I was six years old, walking with my father through a portable exhibit which included the "Bonnie and Clyde Death Car," with 160 bullet holes and blood-stained upholstery. My Dad was an auto mechanic and car enthusiast, and the Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway film had been recently released, so Bonnie and Clyde were all over the pop-culture scene of the time. I knew that the couple were bad people ("the devil's children" in the words of the popular song), but I'm not sure I felt a whole lot better about the posse that had inflicted such a barrage of death, or about the people who made money off the exhibit. Overall, it certainly gave me a negative impression of "PEOPLE." But I wouldn't want to share that with my daughter.

So, how does one instill in one's child a balance of fear and trust of strangers? I'm still working on that one...

P.S. The "Death Car" apparently is still being exhibited in various casinos in Nevada.

The Colors of Suzy Q

I had to go clothes shopping again today for Suzy Q, and I think I'm getting her style down. She likes pinks, purples and greens; or, to be more exact, hot pink, fuchsia and chartreuse. Very vibrant colors for a very stylish lady.

Suzy Q is a puppet I created for our church's children's ministry in "The Village," a local housing project, which we first made contact with when we did a VBS in their Recreation Center last summer. My wife and I were not part of the original team planning to follow up this ministry, but when decisions were made to no longer offer a children's section to the Thursday Night Alpha Classes, we hooked up with this Tuesday night outreach up the hill. Scripts were already planned for a male and female team of puppets, but no one but me had any puppets. And, at that stage, the bulk of my human puppets were store-bought and (consequently) all white-skinned. There are, of course, some whites who live in The Village, but the kids we've had the most interaction with have largely been African-American or bi-racial, so it seemed a good time to create some darker-skinned puppets. I had started working on an African male puppet prior to this decision and assignment, who debuted as Pharaoh's charioteer in a Sunday School play about Moses. "Akil," as he was then called, was smart enough to tell Pharaoh he'd have to drive himself if he wanted to pursue the Israelites into the Red Sea. He took the role of "Sam Wow" in the six-week program we called "Winterfest." But he needed a partner, and so I created a slightly lighter skinned woman with long hair done up with beads, long eyelashes, brilliant pink lips (tinged with purple), dark pink fingernails and zebra-striped glasses. Suzy Q was written as a reporter, and I took that to mean a television reporter, so I went for a strong sense of style. I managed to find a trench coat for her (size 3T--too good to pass up!), but needed a top to go under it and peak through the V-neck. What I found was white, with a plaid pattern including some pink, purple and green. And that was her costume throughout "Winterfest."

When we started up again around Easter with "Springfest" we decided to adapt an existing curriculum, which had our duo traveling around the world exploring God's creation. The first week, they were in Antarctica, for which Suzy got a fur hat (looking like something out of Dr. Zhivago), a white fur trimmed vest and a purple coat. Last week she was back in her trenchcoat, working as an archaeologist in the Egyptian desert, but this week they were in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil. It occurred to me I had NO IDEA what people in Brazil wore when hiking through the rainforest, and several pages worth of Google Image results got me no closer than when I'd begun. But I headed off to the thrift store anyways, and one of the first things I saw was this bright green floppy sunhat. Next I found a scarf with the pink, purple and green kind of plaid pattern similar to her original top. I finished off the ensemble with a green tank top, covered by a blouse/jacket with a similar pattern to the scarf, but with pink being more dominant. I still have no idea what most people would wear on a trip up the Amazon, but I know what Suzy Q would wear.

Now, if I could just apply this new-found fashion sense to what to buy for my wife and daughter...