Getsemani...

How could I get myself into any real trouble if my mind was typically full of ideas that required long hours of planning and later executing?  Somehow, at the age of 16, I had been able to convince my high school principal to give me money to go on my own to the hardware store and purchase six electric light dimmer switches, four regular light switches, twelve color flood lights, 9 spot lights, adjustable light fixtures, spools of wire, plugs, insulating tape, soldering materials, and a few other things that I would be using to build the switch board and the stage 21 lights for our production of Jesus Christ Superstar.  For days I had worked on the design, dreaming up color schemes, placement on stage, and trying to figure out how much of everything I would need to create the effects I had envisioned in my mind.  The selection of materials at the hardware store was limited, so afterwards I still needed to modify my ideas to conform to the reality of what I was able to purchase.  In the end, I converted a classroom pupil desk that was donated by the school into the control panel for every light on the stage of our high school production.

As much as I also wanted to be the creative hands flipping the switches, dimming the lights, and controlling all of the light effects that I had created for the musical play, I was forced to train and delegate the job to a classmate because of other responsibilities that fell upon me.  You see, by the time I was 14 years old, genetics and hormones had covered my face with a full grown beard.  So by the time I was 16, nobody else in my class was actually better suited to play the role of Jesus without having to wear a fake beard instead.  Anyway, after all, I had already memorized part of the dialog of the role of Jesus in order to perform it during my performance in a speech competition for which I was fortunate enough to win the first prize just a few weeks earlier.  After spending the two previous years competing in the "Original" speech category, I finally decided to give it a try in the "Drama" category instead.  For this effort I borrowed the Jesus Christ Superstar album from a friend of my sister, made copies of the lyrics booklet, redacted the scenes of the trial before Pilate and the crucifixion, and set myself to the task of memorizing and practicing my acting for days on end.  Somehow, after winning the competition among all the participating schools, my classmates all got caught up in the moment and decided to turn the one man show into an entire class production instead.

I have never been able to put in half of me into anything of which I felt that I could put in all of my effort instead.  Soon I found myself dreaming up light effects, so I had to build the control box to make it happen.  Then I dreamed about how to be able to hold the cross in place during the play, so I went about for days building the cross and all of the attachments and gadgets to keep me and it safely in place.  Even the crown of thorns had to be perfect, so I spent hours weaving a crown made of long skinny branches of thorned "trinitarias" and then removing all of the thorns that aimed themselves inwards to avoid getting pricked.  An old white bed sheet was all my aunt that lived next door really needed to make the outfit, since she had always been a wizard at sewing just about anything I needed.  I do not recount any of this to brag since in essence this stuff came natural to me and anything less would have been abnormal behavior.  Yet now as an adult I look back in time and am still amazed that any adult actually trusted me in doing all these things without supervision or guidance.  I think that if I suddenly found out that my son was about to wire up 21 lights for a school production, first I would probably faint from amazement, but then after I would wake up from my head having hit the deck I would definitely want to see what he was up to in hopes of keeping anyone from getting electrocuted in the process.  Now that I look back at it all it truly amazes me that I was able to survive my own crazy inventions and adventures!

A few weeks back I took a chance and purchased some pretty expensive theater tickets hoping that my oldest son would want to go with me to see the Broadway production of Jesus Christ Superstar in the newly renovated Fox Theater in Riverside, California.  Ted Neely was 33 years old when he first played the role of Jesus in Broadway, and later on also in the movie.  Friday night, Good Friday, this beautiful rock opera musical was once again brought back to life with a now 66 year old Ted Neely playing the role of Christ.  Years back, when my son was only 10 years old I bought some college theater tickets to take him to see this play and to my surprise he loved it.  Now, at the age of 17, I had prayed for days that God would bless him into wanting to go see it again with me.  The challenge was not so much that he would want to go, since I already knew that he liked the play, the real challenge was that he would make himself available and not back out at the last minute making me waste the cost of his front row seat.  In an act of true faith, I bought his ticket without even asking my son if he wanted to go, and then every day, several times a day; I told God how grateful I was that He was making sure that my son would go with me.  In my heart, even though I can see his lips move and hear the words coming out of his mouth saying things that are in line with an atheist, I have no doubt that God is working in supernatural ways to touch his heart.  All I wanted to do by having him attend the musical with me was to plant another seed in his mind, heart, and soul of the same experiences that changed my own life as a young man.  I cannot change him; make him into anything that he does not want to be.  In fact, I do not want to change him and make him into anything he does not want to be.  That is not my job as his father.  If I would set my goals to such high standards, why would I need God in my life anyway?  Instead I'll settle for trying my best to be a good influence, a positive role, and a dependable source of hope in his life.

After a few tense moments of one of his female friends arriving at our home crying for reasons that only they were privy to, and at our agreed time of departure, the young man with the long dark hair, psychedelic shoes, purple jeans, black trench coat, interesting but needless Johnny Depp eyeglasses, and black fedora hat boarded my car.  At that exact moment I sighed and made a silent prayer thanking God for keeping His end of the deal.  The play was nothing short of beautiful and marvelous.  Other than getting up at the beginning of the second act and missing three of the songs to go answer a phone call from the still apparently distressed female friend, my son behaved in his own unique and typical fashion, which pleased me to no end.  On our way out of the theater and back to the car I told him that he had missed the song "Getsemani" when he left to answer his phone.  Immediately he replied, "Oh, then I will just have to sing it..." for which he then began to sing from memory and out loud the entire song from beginning to end without a care in the world of who might be around him during this impulsive act of joy.  Yes, he was right, he actually had not missed anything at all since that particular song, also being his favorite, had already been saved inside his amazingly powerful and beautiful mind.

There must be a reason for which when I was 16 years old my life took a path that overwhelmingly consumed my every thought in order to memorize the lines of the first musical that Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber produced on the professional stage.  In this same way I believe that there must be a reason for which my son has already memorized the song of "Getsemani" without much ryhm or reason, since he has never been involved in any acting and very much not a religious individual.  To many, this might all just seem as pure coincidences.  To me, however, it is much more than happen stance and random acts of events.  I know that one day, when my son is having to deal with his own parenting challenges he will transport himself to these shared moments between us and find answers in some of these experiences.  It might turn out to be the blind act of faith of his father buying a ticket not even knowing if he would agree to go, or the willingness to accept him just as he is regardless of my own beliefs and the difficulties that lay in between our differences.  Maybe it will be something as simple of him realizing how much joy a father can get from sharing special moments with his children.  Regardless of the final outcome, and the fact that Ted Neely can definitely sing "Getsemani" much better than my son, a deal is a deal, I bought the tickets, God got him to go, and life was good!

Dad