Spring Awakening, the Broadcway Play, reviewed by Faith Family Learning

I went to see Spring Awakening. Thank you, Helen so very much. It wasn't what she or I was expecting.


At intermission I was thinking, even saying, “Why was such great talent wasted on such tired themes?” One just can not have all sex is all good and all restraint is all bad – not in today's world. Are 15 year olds today discovering sex? No, I said, they are entering puberty at 7 in a society awash in sex and are jaded by 15. This play is set in and is fighting the battles of 100 years ago. Helen did not agree.

I suspected that she was right. That the play was not about society today, but was allowing older veiwers to replay their own exploration. Exploring the body and its beauty. Recalling the battles fought in the sixties. But, still, the world is not that stick-figurish, Helen.

In the play, adults are only German commandants, sexual repression is bad, all discipline is pictured as abuse, and exploration into sado-masichism is normal.

But then there was the second half. The audience erupted in applause for the “you're fucked” scene and song. Ilse is fucked by the artist colony. Moritz commits suicide. One youth recruits another into homosexual behavior. Melchior is sent to reform school where he is raped. Vindala is dead at the hands of an abortionist. Okay. This is the world I know. It is a world of the consequences of the philosophy espoused in the first half of the play!

In the end Melchoir resolves to remember the dead, be loyal to friends, and to prepare for children. The casts sings a cheerful song of purple summer. Ambiguous, but good enough for me to read that that hope triumphs over the mess through resolve.

Good, I thought. In a day when even very young people find that their sexuality is exploited in the extreme and they are left holding the bag, the old saw that any discipline is necessarily abuse is way tired.

Helen was disappointed. She wanted more of an exploration of sex. We had masturbation, young exploration, incest, two bare bottom intercourse scenes, as well as the art colony and abortion and homosexuality, so I figured I had enough broad exploration of sex.

I was annoyed by the continuous negative mention of the clergy. In the end I was glad I had not seen yet another Caspar Milk Toast. Ever notice how EVERY clergyman is always a wus? But then it dawned on me. We had seen a clergyman preaching just as the intercourse scene was winding up and right before the “you are in trouble” scene and the “you’r fucked” song. He was the voice of conscience. Wow! There is a departing from the stereotype!

Helen was disappointed with the Romeo and Juliet in the graveyard form.

We agreed that the lighting was the best we had ever seen and that set design was intriguing and creative.

Helen wanted some change, some maturation of the characters. Melchior and Vindala didn't have to continue singing their same notes. Why, even the adults might change. There might be an ally – like the priest in Romeo and Juliet.

Thought provoking. In a world where to be for any restraint, any discipline is to be considered inappropriate if not abuse; in a world where children are so awash with sex that freedom itself is a block to having much hope of a family life in which the raising of children is the focus; in a world where innocent exploration is a mean joke – in THAT sort of world, perhaps this play is then read as a revolution against the revolution. We once worried that bureaucracy would become the iron cage of the human spirit. Today instead, we have found that having no restraint is itself the largest bondage. The youth of today, having too little in the way of railings, can not but fly off the rails. Are they really complaining against a parentocracy of fascist dictates – or are they asking where parental responsibility went to – replete with stock in trade German characters – clearly itself politically correct.

Maybe we need a new Spring in the culture. Far be it from me to say we need a return to traditional values. I am FAR too educated for that. Maybe a change in character or a maturation? How about then, a forward move to embracing the beauty of love and of lovemaking in the context of family and caring for children. How about a move forward to the hearts of parents and children being bent toward one another? How about a move forward to lives lived in the context of both birth and death, supported therefore, with the voice of -- conscience. Has ever such a thought dawned in the arts before?

There was no more poignant line in the play that Ilse saying to Moritz, “Don't you see, by the time you wake up, I'll be on the trash heap.” Here is a wake-up call.

Haunted House or Wholesome Home

Notice how dark our culture is? Even the word “dark” is considered good. Like “dark humor” is considered sophisticated. Dark clothing is considered desireable. Music groups advertising their wares, dress shabbily and look gloweringly at you – and this is good?

“Light” is considered to be the opposity of heavy or weighty, and therefore unimportant. Is this because synthetic light is so abundant? Before electricity, light was highly valued. Once the sun went down, we had to use candles or kerosene – neither one very good for studying by, let alone much else.

The outside culture is certainly in our homes. But is that what we want?

Do we want a home of dark humor or light comedy?
Do we want a home that is a fortress or a palace?
Do we want a house that is darkly impressive, or full of light?
Do we want a conversation that is critical or one that is full of the Light of the Ages?
Do we want a family that is at war with one another, or one that is forgiving and hopeful?
Do we want a home that is “spiritual” or one that is “godly”?
Do we want a home that is suspicious or one that “hopes the best.”
Do we want a family that is ever striving? Or one that is “at rest?”
Do we choose to decorate our hearts with words that make them caves of doom, or temples for Jesus?
Do we fight for our license? Or do we delight in discipline?
Do we train ourselves to be realists? Or do we cultivate faith?
Do we celebrate corruption with the world? Or do we hope in the resurrection?

What holidays will you celebrate with your children? What legacy do they pass down? Why follow the culture's path of dark, when light is available?

Do we need two blogs?

This blog was originally intended to go with http://www.faithfamilylearning.org/, primarily for homeschoolers.
I now have http://www.greatshalom.org/ which is very much about faith for learning, but includes students and teachers of all kinds as well.  I feel we need a blog for teachers. Can we all use this site?  Or do we need to break out? 

For now, let's use just one, and rethink this question when we have more traffic.

Thanks, Sharon Sarles

Encouraging teachers

Good teachers are hard to find. They are harder to keep. The system beats them down.
How can we encourage better teaching?

At my campus, I partnered with the campus manager to have a welcome/hospitality time. Since we have many adjuncts, we decided to do this for two days as a hospitality time in the faculty lunchroom.

People came in, smiled to see the goodies and introduced themselves to me and one another. A small step in blessing.

What could be done at your campus?

Resignation

I am surprised and uncomfortable with the assumption of the necessity to resign oneself to status quo when it is a child who is needing healing, especially with learning issues. An older person, facing a grave illness, usually as a result of a lifetime of wrong choices will pursue healing -- with vigor -- through medicine, through improved lifestyle, and through miraculous means. Some retired people follow Benny Hinn around. RVs camp like a city around his meeting places. Okay, but what happens when their grandchild appears to have some trouble? Why be resigned then? This lie: "it is only genetic" rears up and people bow down. Poppycock! It doesn't even make sense. Oh, cancer is just genetic. Why then is there a significant increase in the younger population? Why are there geographic patterns? Oh, autism is ... well you just can't help it. Why then is there an increase from 3 in 10,000 children in the 1950s to 1 in 166 or more today? Rubbish! And even if something is genetic -- so what? Is God not about the genes?

I'm finding the parents of children with special needs need to hear about the possibility of healing. I am finding even my dearest sisters in the Lord, whom I would most expect to know about healing, need to be reminded about healing. I am finding I need to publish this with all the force I can. So, I will be posting about healing.

Be invited to write back. Thanks. SS

God always wants to heal you. We know this from Jesus work on the cross, his death and resurrection.

“Surely/ firmly/truly, we know that He bore our sickness and carried away our pain.” Isaiah 53: 4 (translated literally from Hebrew)

Not only is this plain Hebrew, but also we know this is the correct interpretation of the Isaiah scripture, for it is quoted in Matthew, clearly in the context of healing:

Matthew 8:16&17
And when evening had come, they brought to Him any who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill
17 in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, “He himself took our infirmities, and carried away our disease.”

We know also from I Peter 2:24: “By His wounds you were healed.” The context is indeed, total healing, not just bodily, but the wider of the chapters is one of complete practicality. Peter is dealing with common, everyday matters, not things that could be figurative or vague. It is evident that Peter is alluding to Isaiah 53 : no guile, relived not again and then in v 24 “ who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed, v 25 For y were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and the Bishop of you souls.

We are completely made whole. Bodily healing is included in our overall healing.

It is a sure, and firm word, witnessed to by three scriptures.

And by many many who have believed and received.

Take your stand on the sure word of God. Every word is sure. Your salvation is sure, if you have receive and believed. Now received the rest of your salvation, the rest of your healing, the salvation of your body.

It is the plain word of God, witnessed to and explained – clearly and succinctly. Therefore I recommend simply sitting and soaking in these verses. Why keep arguing when God has spoken? The thing to do is to bring mind into alignment with what you should now know. Reread, meditate, study out these scriptures. Satisfy yourself. I think you will find it clear.

God wants to heal you; notice how Jesus acted

God always wants to heal you – and your children. We know this from Jesus’ life and ministry.

We all know that Jesus healed people. What keeps Him from healing now? Some people do teach that healing is not for today, but what I read is that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

Someone came to Jesus and said, I know you can, but will you. Jesus said, “I will.” (Mark 1:40-41)

Jesus went about doing good, healing people. In several places it says that “he healed them all.” Jesus is still the same.

Some people say, “Well, only one guy at the pool of Siloam got healed.” Fine, maybe so, but nowhere does it say that Jesus didn’t WANT to heal everyone else. Some people looked to the pool, the angel, the tradition, the brick temple. One person accepted healing from Jesus.

Even he had to be coaxed. “Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asked. Out from his mouth came a distraction: “I have no man to let me down into the water.” John 5: 7 Jesus said, “Rise, take up thy bed and walk.” V8

Perhaps no one else looked at Jesus. Perhaps no one else listened to Jesus. Perhaps he spoke to them and they turned away. We do know that this fellow heard obeyed Jesus. “And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked” v.9a We do not, absolutely do not have any stories of people coming to Jesus, looking to him for healing, asking for help and Him turning them away.

Jesus says to you today: “Do you want to be healed? He has made provision. He is present. He is powerful. He is willing. Look to him. Call to him. Are you by the pool at the temple? If he spoke to you, would you obey? Look to Jesus! Thank Him for his great work for you.