I Hope So

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A few weeks back on This American Life they did a story about a kid's book called "Nobody's Family is Going to Change".  My initial thought was that the book must be written to comfort kids who were worried about significant life changes like births and deaths or divorce, so I was confused when Ira kept describing it as ominous.  Turns out, it is a book that tries to get kids to accept that the reality of life is that some people (ie: your family) are just always going to be horrible, and there's no use hoping things will ever get better.  I thought that was a really sad thing to be teaching your kid.

Kids are given many gifts; like the ability to learn  languages quickly, or the ability to notice minute details the rest of us gloss over--and hope is certainly one of them.  Their ability to hope purely and fully is priceless.  It adds joy and magic to life (which can also be re-phrased as: "purpose" and "meaning", as movies like Miracle on 34th street have so aptly explained).  I mourn those children who let go of this early because of tragic circumstances in their lives; and I have to pity the adult who has had their own hopes ripped from them so bitterly that they want to take this gift from their own children in an attempt to protect them from their inevitable disillusion.

Reality hits all of us hard at times, but I always want to return to hope.  It's a happier place, and a more meaningful one.  I know some people see it as juvenile--as though people who hope are simply not strong enough to accept reality.  But I assert that anyone who has ever struggled to hope in the face of overwhelming opinion or evidence to the contrary in an effort to fight for something better rather than succumb, knows that it is easier to give in to "reality", but nobler to fight for something better. Hope is not futile simply because it is not always--or not yet--fruitful.  "Hope" as a state of being is almost an end unto itself.

I usually overlook "hope" when I consider the triad of qualities I've been taught are the most important to have.  Next to daunting "Faith" and "Charity" it sometimes seems too easy.  But I've been thinking about it a lot today.  A lot of the troubles I've had in my life are the result of choices I make out of despair; out of a lack of hope that I won't always be faced with a choice between enduring the un-endurable and the easy way out.  

Haven't we all thought Romeo was crazy for believing too soon and too completely, the news of Juliet's death?  Couldn't he have had the decency to at least hit the first stage on the list of stages of mourning (denial)?  Can't I have the hope to hold me through this one moment of agonizing no-answers-and-no-end-in-sight to the next one where the pathway opens up?

I hope so.

"I believe that God is able to make a way, where there is no way." - Alex Boyer

I Have a New Job

This is a bit ironic.  It's been such a long time since I've written that the post immediately previous is literally a foil of this one.

And it came to pass that there appeared an opening on the full-time staff of the Utah Opera.  And they considered among themselves who should be called to fill the opening.  And they called Shaun.

OK melodrama aside: I have been on the job for four weeks come Wednesday, and I really love it.  It's the kind of job everyone says you should go out and find: the job that doesn't feel like work.  I mean, it is work; it's hard and it's busy and I am constantly running through my day racing the clock to finish everything before I have to leave, but I love it!  I care about what is being done here, and I am learning things that are helping me grow in my field, and I'm getting to know people who are creative and influential and who have relevant ideas about the arts and opera and the direction we should be taking them into the future...maybe I am still a little dazed, but I am SO GLAD to have this job.

I really feel that my Father in Heaven led me here.  Looking back on the last year or so, the summer of unemployment led me to accept a job I would not have taken if I'd been less desperate; a job that taught me what I needed to know to be qualified to do this current job.  Four years ago, I walked through the backstage door at the Lyric Opera of Chicago for a month, and every day wished I could have been on staff there.  Now I'm doing that at Utah Opera, but I am on staff.  I do belong there.  I've got keys ;)

It's a gift or a tender mercy or a miracle or what have you.  I just want to be grateful for it. Grateful enough.

Shows you need to see in the next few weeks:

Susannah - a tragic opera, beautifully scored by Carlisle Floyd and beautifully sung and acted by the students at the University of Utah Lyric Opera Ensemble.  It's been teaching me about myself and my fellow human beings and about what happens sometimes when we choose to believe the worst about each other.  Don't miss it!  April 20-21st at Kingsbury Hall.

Of Mice and Men - yup, just as heart-wrenching as the book, only with live action.  Another opera by Carlisle Floyd, who will -consequently- be appearing for a Q&A with the invited audience before the final dress rehearsal.  If you would like to be part of the invited audience, contact yours truly :).  I'll also be appearing in the lobby selling Utah Opera swag.  One of my many new duties. May 5-13m at Capitol Theatre

Man of La Mancha - One of my favorites, a lot because of the impossible dream (so much fun to sing in the shower!) but because I want to believe everyone has good inside them too; just every once in a while I need help seeing it.  The hopeful chaser for Susannah.  May 4-19th at Pioneer Theatre

See you there!

AH!!  I can't believe I forgot!
Emeralds - THIS weekend (and next) Ballet West is putting on my third absolute favorite ballet! (The first being Lambarena, the second Romeo and Juliet...)  Petite Mort by Jyri Killian,(my favorite choreographer). Iconic, humorous, transcendent, yet unassuming.  Killian's work will be accompanied on the bill by one of Balanchine's more beautiful creations to haunting music by Gabriel Faure': Emeralds, and the classic Paquita. I love live theatre!