Thursday mornings I usually
attend Faith with Friends, a group of women from my church who gather
for coffee and conversation about matters of faith and spiritual
development. It's not a conventional bible study, since we rarely
concentrate on a single scriptural text. Last year, for example, we
read
Walking the Bible, the
recounting of one's man journey through all the places mentioned in the
Pentateuch. This fall we read
The
Purpose-Driven Life, a spiritual guide which has become
enormously popular but which we found overly simplistic and
works-based. We're not exactly a book club either. We've done
spiritual autobiographies and tried out non-Western approaches to
prayer. Participation in this group is the anchor of my week. Something
else taking place on a Thursday morning has to be extraordinarily
compelling to pull me away.
Today we went on a holiday outing to
Allenberry Resort for the buffet
and matinee performance of "Christmas Dream on Angel Street." I have to
confess here that I was not looking forward to the event. The day
begins at 10 a.m. with an extravaganza of a food spread. It's a typical
all-you-can-eat hotel buffet
with prime rib, spiral ham, roast turkey, three kinds of potatoes, a
hot vegetable bar, a cold vegetable bar, steamed shrimp, a fruit table,
a bread table, and a dessert table. No person could or should eat even
some of everything, although I suspect there are people who do. For
someone trying to watch portion sizes during this season of abundance,
navigating such a spread at midmorning knowing you'll be hungry at
dinner time no matter how much or how little you take is an unwelcome
challenge. I don't even want to think about the vast amounts of
prepared food that must be thrown away.
After the meal you go over to the playhouse for the performance.
"Christmas Dream on Angel Street" is the latest in a series of original
shows put together by a local playwright. It's a typical sentimental
story about the efforts of a young woman to capture the affections of a
former town resident now returned from the big city to run his parents'
struggling ski lodge. The story serves only as a way to set up
performances of popular Christmas songs. There is a pack of adorable
children whose activities move through the scenes, and a subplot set in
a nursing home which shows a disabled character and a very old man in a
non-stereotyped but not (surprisingly to me) overly saccharine way. The
sets and the performances, by local but accomplished professional
actors, are first-rate. Still, attending this play along with the
feasting would not be my first choice for a seven-hour event that costs
$42.50.
One member of the group is very enthusiastic about soirees like this
and she is the one who organized it. She attends many such programs at
this venue, including their famous Murder Mystery Weekend, which costs
$400 and includes three days of meals such as I have described, all
connected by scenes from a play. Reporting on this event is the closest
I'll probably come to a whine in this space about all the things I have
to do for Christmas. Truly, I rarely do something because I feel
obligated. But I wouldn't have done this if I didn't want to be part of
this group.
At the end of the play the actors come off the stage into the audience
and assemble in the lobby where they greet the playgoers and thank them
for coming. As we made our way along the receiving line I saw that the
lead female character was trying to corral the attention of three of
the children who had turned mildly rambunctious. I bent down to the
smallest child, a little girl about six whose performance had been
beguiling in its innocence. "Oh I
like
your earrings!" she exclaimed.
They were just simple Christmas trees, bought at Target probably for
about $5.00.
That was enough to send me away glad that I had come.
