reflections

Perhaps it was the Jane Austen novel I've been reading or maybe it was simply that I have grown up a little and no longer see things as small children do. Whatever was the case, that evening, in the after glow of a job well done, I looked around at the surrounding crowd and saw people in a different light. There were many faces that were completely unfamiliar to me as often is the case in a large audience performance, but there were many within my near vicinity that I distinctly recognized. Some I saw often and knew well, others I had only ever seen occasionally, some I had once known so well but now they seemed as strangers to me.

"How different everything is!" I thought to myself as my mind recollected evenings in years past, very much like this one. I was a child then. I had left this stage behind for a time,and tonight it felt as though I was returning to what I had enjoyed so much as a child and yet everything was not like it had been. Something had changed. I had changed, most of all and in changing my perspective of everything likewise changed.

When I was a child, nights like these were perfect. Evenings like this one, where I would be caught up in the brilliance of the stage lights to finalize with a bow after a performance well done. These were the nights I loved best as a child and I still do very much. But it's different now. As a child, I often dreamed of being on the stage, always, for the rest of my life. It was, to me, the climax that never aged or grew dull in my mind. I could go on living it and dreaming it day after day and never tire of it.

I was quite a vain little girl, and still am. The difference now  is, I've realized that the stage and performance can never be the pinnacles of my life. Because once I step off the stage, unlike when I was a child, caught in the afterglow of the performance, I see the faces of all the people. I really see them. And I know that things are not perfect, that they can never be perfect, not even here.

It robs me of some of the enjoyment that I once had while performing as a young girl, but it is a good sort of thievery because the stolen notion was shallow and meaningless in the first place. I hear the few off-key notes the tenors to my left sometimes mistakenly sing and I feel my own voice faltering often as we entertain our audience and I know that even here, even in the joy we share as singers, this is hardly perfect. This is not where I ultimately want to end up.

Having my vanity diminished is quite a pleasant while harsh ordeal. When one loses their shallow desires and enjoyments, they must find others to pursue. By God's grace, I did find something better to pursue. I can't say I really wanted to pursue it. I might have never wanted what God had given me if it had not been for the constant going home, going to worship each week, and returning to real life after every silly performance I ever had.

That is why God gives us families and the church and a day of worship and rest once a week, is it not? I can't imagine how frivolous and fruitless my  life would be had I not a multitude of people awaiting me in the audience, ready to extend their hands and their love after I have bowed and finished, calling my name and saying,

"come home, come home and rest a while"