over the last few days, and last night especially, something has happened to me that I can’t really explain. i’m a pretty thoughtful person, and it doesn’t take much to get me brooding. but being a part of godspell has done something different to me, something that I’ve never felt before.

through the first act, I’m just acting. sure, with godspell it’s more like having fun with a close group of friends, but it’s acting all the same. and it’s fun for me.

but about halfway through the second act, something happens to me. I’m no longer acting through my head, I’m simply reacting through my heart. sure, I’m still reciting lines and things like that, but I no longer have to think about how my face looks, or what my body language is saying. I’m not listening to my friend philip anymore, either. I’m a disciple of the messiah, listening to some of the most important words ever spoken in history. and when I’m told that I will betray the man behind those words, I’m not acting shocked. i’m cut to the bone, feeling that I have just been told something that has destroyed my world from the very foundations of my soul.

as powerful as that moment is for me, it’s by far not the most powerful. i still don’t understand what comes over me when I see philip acting as if he’s being crucified. my heart breaks, and I’m left an empty shell, left alone like a sheep within a pack of wolves. i become the weakest i have ever been, and as i see the pain in my friend’s face, i feel as if the world should stop right there, and never start again. i don’t think about homework, or about the cute girl in the third row. i don’t even think. I feel.

i feel myself, trembling and small, ready to give up on a world that seems to have no decency. i feel my grandfather, who has been dead since I was six when i saw him die before my eyes. but most amazingly, i can feel god on that worn wooden stage. i can feel him in the lights that beat down on my tortured face, and i can feel him in the hearts and the souls of everyone on that stage. i can feel him, though, most strongly in the stiff, tortured figure above me. i can feel how philip feels, willing but weak, and just filled with the question, why? why me? why them? why you?

it’s a powerful moment, and by far the longest moment I will ever endure. i don’t pretend to know what’s going on on that stage, but i do know that whatever is going to happen, “it’s all for the best”. i don’t know if I can really feel god or not, but at least I can feel a thread of that connection that adam and eve shared with god before the fall. it’s a feeling of respect, and of wholeness. it’s a feeling of assurance, and a feeling that the world could end, but there will still be somewhere to go afterwards. most importantly, it’s a feeling of faith.

now, i’d be the first to admit that i’m not what one would call a “real christian”, who goes to church every sunday and prays for everyone before they go to sleep, but i can say that this musical has changed me like no other. sure it’s a little quirky, yeah, and sure we never have a “perfect” show, but every time we perform this musical, we show a little bit of god to ourselves and everyone around us, just simply by revisiting the idea of Jesus and his disciples.

i can’t by any means speak for my fellow cast members, but i can say that personally, before this musical, i would not have been able to say that i believed in who the bible says jesus was. i just couldn’t comprehend the idea of someone who spent his whole life teaching to mostly deaf ears, and then in the end gave everything up for those who cursed or ignored him. i just simply couldn’t accept that fact. but as I kneel on that stage before god and man and all the rest, i feel whole. i understand. and as the lights dim, i do not fear, but mourn and rejoice at the same time. for my greatest friend in the world has just been tortured to death before my eyes, and I could do nothing about it. but at the same time, i know that my friend will live forever. in the hearts of everyone there, he will live forever. in the minds and the souls of every being that has thought, he will live forever.

in me, he will live forever. and i accept him, not only as my friend and mentor, but as my savior, and as the man who is responsible for the fact that I can sleep comfortably at night. for that brief moment in the great scheme of time, the little speck that is me is allowed to accept everything that ever has and will happen. for that brief moment, i am with god, and god is with me, and i am whole.