the end of the day
Yesterday I attended the final performance this spring of George Fox University's play "The Broken." I would tell you to track down a production of this play and go see it, and I hope this will eventually be possible, but for now it is a newly-written production that my good friend Rhett Luedtke and his talented GFU students developed from start to finish over the past six months. Taking an idea and turning it into a production of any sort in this space of time would be remarkable, but the scale of what they managed to achieve nudges their accomplishment into the vicinity of amazing.
"The Broken" centers on the complexity of determining morality and justice in a region of Papua New Guinea where missionaries, native people and the oil industry intersect. Deeply informed by Rhett's experience of growing up as a missionary child in PNG in the 1970s and early 1980s, and his family's more recent experiences in this region's far more fraught contemporary environment, the play presents no absolute heroes or demons, and answers few questions. It moves viewers to think deeply and carefully about the issues at stake without presenting a neatly-wrapped conclusion to make us all feel better.
I'm sure I'll be thinking about "The Broken" for a long time to come, but one of the things that resonated for me yesterday was a comment made by a motherly native woman who possessed both Godly bearing and much wisdom. While none of the characters could be described as "perfect," Dakis Beto probably came closest to this stature. Speaking with a young pilot and a woman who worked for an oil company, she made a statement to the effect that if you were content/at peace at the end of the day, you were doing what you were meant to be doing.
Wise words. Universally applicable? Sometimes I suspect we are called into situations that make us uneasy or troubled. Those feelings of trouble and unease, though, are meant to pull us toward the actions that bring about some sort of change. They are spurs to the peace and contentment to which Dakis refers. In the end, then, we are back with peace.
I know there are things in my days that leave me with less peace and contentment than Dakis would suggest I should have. I suspect the same is true for many others. Her words are a spur to me to examine the places in which I am out of sync, the situations that disrupt my peace. Life is not easy, nor will it always be comfortable. But I know from experience that peace in the midst of discomfort is possible when I am doing what is intended of me. I pray for guidance that will bring me toward the place I am meant to be. I pray the same for each of you.
"The Broken" centers on the complexity of determining morality and justice in a region of Papua New Guinea where missionaries, native people and the oil industry intersect. Deeply informed by Rhett's experience of growing up as a missionary child in PNG in the 1970s and early 1980s, and his family's more recent experiences in this region's far more fraught contemporary environment, the play presents no absolute heroes or demons, and answers few questions. It moves viewers to think deeply and carefully about the issues at stake without presenting a neatly-wrapped conclusion to make us all feel better.
I'm sure I'll be thinking about "The Broken" for a long time to come, but one of the things that resonated for me yesterday was a comment made by a motherly native woman who possessed both Godly bearing and much wisdom. While none of the characters could be described as "perfect," Dakis Beto probably came closest to this stature. Speaking with a young pilot and a woman who worked for an oil company, she made a statement to the effect that if you were content/at peace at the end of the day, you were doing what you were meant to be doing.
Wise words. Universally applicable? Sometimes I suspect we are called into situations that make us uneasy or troubled. Those feelings of trouble and unease, though, are meant to pull us toward the actions that bring about some sort of change. They are spurs to the peace and contentment to which Dakis refers. In the end, then, we are back with peace.
I know there are things in my days that leave me with less peace and contentment than Dakis would suggest I should have. I suspect the same is true for many others. Her words are a spur to me to examine the places in which I am out of sync, the situations that disrupt my peace. Life is not easy, nor will it always be comfortable. But I know from experience that peace in the midst of discomfort is possible when I am doing what is intended of me. I pray for guidance that will bring me toward the place I am meant to be. I pray the same for each of you.
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