Comments on an article in "Christiantity Today"

I just finished reading an article from Christianity Today entitled "Silent Night, Merciful Night" by James Calvin Schaap. It's labeled as fiction, but I choose to ignore that point. ;) It tells the story of a professional actor who attends a church for all the wrong reasons. He's asked to do a dramatic reading for the Christmas Eve service. Go ahead and read it. I'll wait.

Even if this is fiction, it's obvious that the author knows something about the experience of acting. While I'm certainly no professional actor, I could identify with what was being said. I found myself being drawn in, even though I could tell that something unpleasant was almost certainly going to happen. And then it did, and I found myself drawn even more into that scene.

When I read the description of his anger at the disrespectful children, I was very much aware of my own failings. I've felt that very anger. In fact, just this past week, I described to Richard Kleiman, the pastor at 1^st Pres Baytown, that I often left the services at his church feeling angry, rather than uplifted. He gently, but correctly, pointed out that it was probably something in me, rather than the service, that was making me angry. This article in CT has reminded me of that.

When you combine all of this with my comments earlier about the description of the biblical narrative as an improv in the making, I have to wonder if somebody isn't trying to tell me something. I'm just not sure what that something is yet.