Dear God, last night, my wife and I attended a “reading” of a play based on Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve at The Tobin Center in San Antonio. It was two people performing a stage play adaptation of Twain’s work. Here is what I experienced last night.
- We got to see it with a couple of men I’ve gotten to meet through Christian Men’s Life Skills. It was a special treat to get to see it with them, although I didn’t see a couple of things coming that I think made it hard on one of them who is going through a valley in life. More on that in a minute.
- A weird thing that happened was that, about 20 minutes into the show (about 30 minutes after the stated start time), two caregivers brought in two wheelchair bound women who were…I don’t know the right word to use. They were to the point where they were not seemingly congnitively lucid. So it was quite a disruption to the audience and even the actors on the stage which would have been fine if I thought they were enjoying or appreciating the work, but they weren’t. At least one of them wasn’t.
- How do I know she wasn’t? At the beginning she seemed scared and/or confused. On stage, Adam was working out his name that he said Eve had given to him in a comedic way: “A Damn? A dam! etc.” But the one woman was calling back another name that was different that Adam but it was almost like she wanted someone with a similar name. It was hard to hear. Again, I had a lot of space for this woman to be who she is in that environment regardless of what it cost me as an audience member as long as I thought it was blessing her. I just didn’t get the feeling it was blessing her. Quite the opposite. The other woman was responseless. It was hard to determine if she was processing anything one way or the other. How do I know all of this, by the way? Well, I was sitting immediately behind them because my two friends had sat in two handicap seats on the floor because one recently had a stroke and the wheelchairs were put right next to them. When the one woman would make noises, I was just praying to you to cover her with your peace. I felt bad for her.
- A little later, the first woman started saying very loudly, “I want to go home!” It was loud and clear, although obviously the words of a woman who is able to get out few words now. I looked at her caregiver who was just patting her on the arm. I couldn’t understand 1.) why they had come so late, 2.) why they had brought them to the show in the first place, and 3.) why they were just keeping them there when they were obviously not enjoying it and disrupting the experience for everyone. Finally, after about 10 “I want to go homes,” the awkwardly and disruptively took the wheelchairs out of the theater. Shout out to the actors who pressed on and didn’t miss a beat.
- Ironically, this part of the disruption went down during the “Fall.” I admit I missed part of what was happening on stage because I was trying to figure out if they needed me to step down and help them. They didn’t. And I should say that I’m telling all of the detail on this for a reason I’ll get to in a couple of points.
- There were many beautiful and poignant parts of the play, but the climax is in the end when (spoiler alert) Eve dies. Adam has a line that is something to the effect of, “Better to have lived with out of the Garden with Eve than to have lived in it without her.” What an interesting statement. Was the “Fall” worth it (not that I’m blaming Eve–Adam was right there–) to avoid human lonliness? It made me think about my life. My wife and I have experienced pain together. There are times now when I annoy her. There are times when she does something that frustrates me. But isn’t it better to be fallen together than maybe a little less annoyed or frustrated alone? To see Adam express his sorrow over losing Eve. Of course, it made me think of my wife and how grateful I am for her, but it also made me think of one of my friends in the audience whose wife is currently on hospice. I don’t believe she has long before death, and they have been married 65 years. And yes, there has been pain and frustration between them. No, life hadn’t been perfect. But he would rather live out of the Garden with her than in the Garden without her.
- When the who was over, my friend was standing, and then I saw he was crying. I just grabbed him and held him for a moment. I thought it would be the last scene with Adam that had gotten to him (and he told me later that it really did), but in that moment he was crying because of the woman in the wheelchair loudly saying, “I want to go home!” His wife is currently in a nursing home has she dies, and she apparently says that to him all of the time, and it breaks his heart. It was hard for all of us to hear her say that so loudly and emphatically when we could tell she wasn’t completely lucid, but it was especially hard for my friend to feel that sorrow on behalf of his wife as well.
Father, I want you no matter what. I want eternity with your Triune self of you, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. And I also want my wife there. But while we are out of the Garden and living here in this fallen world, I thank you for her. Eve had a line about hoping she died before Adam because he was too much a part of her and who she was for her to live without him. As for me, well, my wife and I joke that our goal is to go together and to go quickly. The odds of that are slim, but it’s hard for either of us to imagine life without the other. But the part of me that wants to care for her wants her to go first only because I don’t want there to be a time in this earthly existence for her that she doesn’t feel like I’m there for her. But all of that is in your hands. In the meantime. Today. I want to enjoy her. I want to enjoy her presence outside of the Garden. I want to sink into the presence of this woman you blessed me to know. And I know our marriage is unique. I know it’s unique to have been together for 37 years and still enjoy each other as much as we do. We have sorrows, to be sure. We have people missing from our lives that is a constant ache. I guess that’s part of being out of the Garden. But for this relationship, I am grateful. And please comfort my friend. Love his wife and be merciful to her as her time out of the Garden comes to an end and she prepares to enter your Garden on the other side of death. Help my friend to feel your love. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Comfort my friend, please.
I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,
Amen
Emails to God 