Here is post one to "individualism is good."
Post three will be about relativism and individualism. There I will speak to relativism being a good thing. Run away. Run away now.
In other news, the pastoral staff at Reconciler will be teaching about ecumenism and our little church plant at North Shore Baptist Church. Class begins at seven. Come one. Come all.
Posted by tripp at January 19, 2005 06:05 AMI went last week and saw a sweet and charming dance concert. Not sweet and charming like Disney. Just sweet and charming.
The idea was taken from a book. I will have to
look up the name of the book. But it is about
3 young people in a small village in Austria.
They live at an abbey. The saint they serve has been swallowed by a bear. It is a saint in the belly of a bear.
A narrator does a narrative about the other saints who have been in something of an animal including the belly of a ferret and the beard of a mountain goat.
When the saint is about to speak, the bear's stomach hurts. He growls loudly and falls to the ground. The 3 young followers stand close by and write down what the saint says.
The trees in the forest are alive. They revere
the saint in the belly of the bear also.
The bear is the best. He is just a bear. He does no stereotypical bear stuff. The guy who is the bear just wears brown pants, a brown sweater, brown socks and has a brown, real beard.
He eats, sleeps and uses the bathroom. He growls occasionally like a dog when someone may be interrupting him.
What is so funny is the trees and the 3 followers
worshipping the bear. The bear has no idea what
is going on. He's just a bear.
The 3 followers spending all this time in contemplation and reflection with the bear with a saint in his belly in the abbey find their lives' vocations.
The saint, speaking from the bear, one time said,
"a girl who dances like a tree will become one."
So, Uta becomes a tree.
The guy becomes a vintner. And the other girl follower becomes a saint.
The moral of the whole story is that the saint in the belly of the bear retreated from the world into the belly of the bear.
The girl who becomes a saint decides not to retreat from the world, but be the voice of many voices.
As audience members we were each given an epistle
from the saint in the belly of the bear's revelations.
There is a time in the concert called "Reading Break." We were to spend some time reading the epistle. It was funny to hear the pages rustle and everyone reading this little epistle.
It was cool to watch all of this done in modern dance. Abstract. It was not miming or gesturing things.
I can't describe how cool it was.
The girl saint through the whole time spends a lot of time reading and contemplating. They make a point of saying, "She contemplated more and more .... and became more and more confused."
But she was the one who got it at the end.
I will try and bring in some of the saint in the belly's revelations on Friday.
This probably was a very confusing synopsis ---
but I hope I got the gist of it.
Funny story in real life. I absolutely loved the bear and found myself mimicking the bear on the way back from the laundry. When I opened the door to the Ghost House (where I live) there
was my new roommate, Arie, standing. He caught me being a bear!
He is totally cool and did not think anything of it.
Posted by: teresa at January 19, 2005 04:13 PM