"Listening For Grace"

We drove the thirty plus miles this evening into Glendale to Trinity Mennonite Church to attend a presentation of "Listening For Grace."  This is a play about relationships, sexuality and the church, written and performed by Ted Swartz. I had been reading accounts of the play in eastern churches and was feeling a bit jealous that we were just too far away to go to any of the performances.

When I read that Ted and Co. were going to be in Arizona this weekend (Tucson yesterday and Phoenix today), we immediately made plans to be in attendance.

From the program:

"The show is a father's journey of discovering, searching, getting advice and hearing from people in his own church. It's a piece about church, about fatherhood, about community. It's a piece about our sexuality. And hopefully it's an entertaining and enlightening piece about openness  and love."

There is a piano on stage on the left. The piano player's music is part of, and moves the show along, but he, himself does not speak. There is a chair occupied by a cello player on the right side of the stage. The cello player represents the son, but the cello does the speaking. Ted Swartz, the author, plays the father Darryl in a monologue that basically includes all the other characters. Sometimes hilariously funny, sometimes terribly sad, but always thought provoking, it was a wonderful experience.

All in all, it was a good preparation for this week's Executive Board meeting.