"I have sought thee, sung thee, dreamed thee"...Man of La Mancha

Last night the Freeport Community Players closed its production of Man of La Mancha, the broadway musical story of Cervantes' Don Quixote. It was my great privilege to be a part of the Players and the musical as Antonia Quijana. It was a visual and auditory masterpiece. Since school is getting ready to begin, however, I am glad to have some rest. As I was driving home thinking about the relationships I had formed with quality, talented people and my new-found niche in the community theatre world, I thought about Christian cultural impact once again.

Or rather, how we don't impact the culture. Now I know there are, and have been, many Christians who say thet are fighting the culture wars. They write articles and give speeches (mostly to fellow Christians) and feel good about themselves. But so far, talking and writing (articles, at least) has not made a difference. Partly, non-Christians don't care what we say when we speak in Christian platitudes. We are losing the culture war.

Why? We don't make good art. We don't participate in good art. Unknowingly, the world is enjoying and imitating the beauty of God's natural revelation and the gift of his creative image in man while we are settling for pale reflections that we think are safe and modest.

Now I realize that the "academic discussions" are important in the culture war, but even more important, in my opinion, is that these talking heads, as well as Christians everywhere, take part in the creation of good art. When we excel or in the least, appreciate what is reflective of God's glory in good art, that's when the non-believing world takes notice. We need to be more incarnational and less rhetorical. These are talented people in the culture, for the most part, and we need to match their skill with skill, not verbal abuse.

And form relationships. Christians have a hard time forming realtionships with the unbelieving world, and most often hide behind articles, rallies, speeches and 80s hairdos. If I have learned anything in the past year, it's that relationships matter, perhaps more than anything else. We want to believe, wrongly, that choices and outcomes have to do with ability above all. But take our most important relationship- our relationship with God. If there is an functioning ability binding us, it is Christ's merit, but he did not merely perform a function for us. He restored our relationship with God. Think about all the time that business people spend netoworking or that law students spends interning. They need skill to land that job, but more than is often acknowleged it is important that there is relationship established. We need to establish a good relationship with the art world and those in. We need to learn from them and participate in good art with them, and beginning producing our own.