"Gotta Get a Message to You"

I was listening to an oldies station the other day and ever since then off and on I've had the Bee Gees song "Gotta Get a Message to You" in my head. It's not a song I remember hearing before, and I'm NOT a huge Bee Gees fan, but in thinking about my next dramatic endeavor, it has helped me to hone the central character's motivation...

The puppet play for tonight's KidzLife was a transition piece. Having gotten Daniel out of the lion's den last week, we arrived at Daniel 7, the point at which Daniel's dreams and visions of the future take precedence over his life history. The book actually goes for five more chapters in this vein, but it all gets a bit complicated and needs to be read in context with other similar passages. Hence the idea of moving on to Revelation. So tonight we had the angel Azmaveth help Daniel understand his dream, and then get called away to help John understand his vision on Patmos. Beginning next week, John will be our focus.

Daniel, of course, is alway pictured with lions, and John is often pictured with an eagle. To my knowledge there is no actual legend of John encountering an eagle, but ancient iconography made the identification as a way of saying how his Gospel (especially in its opening) "soared" above the others, and focuses on the Divinity of Christ. I had thought for some time that as I had Daniel talking with his lion companions, I would have John talk with his friend the eagle. But I had no idea what they would say to each other.

Then it occurred to me: John has just written down his revelation, with divine instructions to send it to the seven churches of Asia minor. John is a prisoner stuck on an island. He's "gotta get a message" to some people, but it seems doubtful that as a prisoner and non-citizen he could rely on the Roman postal system. So, if he encountered a creature that could fly, why not try to persuade it to deliver your letter?

The eagle, of course, would be offended by such a suggestion. Serving as a "common carrier pidgeon" would be beneath a bird of such regal elegance. So John will have to convince the bird that the message of his letter is lofty enough to require an eagle to carry it (hence giving us a reason for him to recount his vision to the eagle). To fill out this cast, I think I will write a part for a Roman Guard whose suspicions are aroused by the prisoner's time spent with the bird.

Babylon Wrap-Up

I can't believe how quickly the weeks are passing by this spring! Of course, "spring" seem like a misnomer as the temperatures have fallen and snow has been coming down most of the day. "A little bit of winter hid and came out in the spring," as my daughter described it (and thus began a poem the entire family contributed to this morning). That was a lovely start to the day, but nothing much seem to function as it should from that point on, and I was racing to get another scipt done before this evening's meeting.

We made it to Daniel 6, where we explained how Daniel got into the lion's den in the first place, and then got him out. So it's goodbye to the "denizens" and off to dreamland and from there to Patmos, where we switch dreamers and John the Revelator will take center stage. I have numerous problems to solve there, both in ideas and execution, but before I get to that, let me wrap up a few things from the Babylon segment.

We've had three different kings in the past three weeks, all performed by a very talented fourth grader named Beth. She had done Nebuchadnezzar in earlier episodes, and she helped to develop him into a very childish character. Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar's grandson, is known primarily for giving the big party at which God's hand appeared and wrote words of judgement on the wall. I played that up and developed him as a brain-dead party dude, egged on by a couple of "Bill and Ted" type buddies. Then tonight we had Darius the Mede, who was more pompous and self-important, egged on by a couple of his presidents (Jackson and Johnson) to pass the law forbidding prayer to any other than the king during "Darius the Mede Month." The last two weeks the flashback characters were handled as puppets in a separate acting space, rather than the live actors, and the children were involved as puppeteers.

When I first developed the lions, I thought Lenny and Leonora would be more important, with Lex remaining a gruff presence mostly offstage. As it turned out, Lex was the most important and the central story arc ended up being how he came to like and respect Daniel (whom he originally thought of as a forbidden delicacy he was determined to find some way of eating). Quite unexpectedly as I wrote, Daniel began using the stories of bad kings he had known to teach Lex how to be a better king, and he assured the lion that some day he would return to the wild and to his dominion (as Nebuchadnezzar did after his seven years of living like an wild animal). Thanks to a heavy sewing session last night, I was able to get Lex's mouth opened and working in time for tonight's opener, the ol' lion-tamer-putting-his-head-in-the-lion's-mouth routine. Nora startled him and reflexively he swallowed, then gagged on the prophet, which put Daniel in danger and called out the angel Azmaveth, but when they were finally able to explain they told everybody that Daniel was simply looking into a cavity which was giving Lex trouble. That display of trust, and the final farewell when Daniel left the den tonight proved what good friends they had become.