Last night was the first general meeting of the Paul the Musical committee that I attended. It went on from 8p.m. to practically 11p.m. and when I left, the creative team and publicity team were still there. But I had a blast!
I haven’t realized how much I missed working in a team. And such a diverse team it is! We have an SAF sniper with a passion for drama who is our (very experienced) Technical Manager (woooah!). We have a guy whose dream was always to be a music composer but who ended up being an Economics professor (ha ha)… we have a casting director and actor in TCS who is now directing. We have a young fashion talent who is designing for such a large cast in a dramatic production for the first time. Just meeting everybody and getting to know one another was so much fun!
I had mentioned in an earlier blog post that during my counseling session with Fr. Goh, he had said that I was like Paul. As I sat there listening to Anthony describe the way they are portraying Paul’s story, I suddenly realized just HOW MUCH like Paul I was. A scholar by training, observant in religious tradition, intellectual, head-strong, and prideful. Even after Paul met Christ on the road to Damascus, it took him the rest of his life to truly understand what LOVE meant – and what faith truly was. He had the gift of great intellectual understanding and he had eloquence- but it was his companion, simple Barnabas, who showed Paul what unconditional love really was, and who made Paul’s sermons understandable to the people.
The story of Paul is a universal story of self-actualization. It is the journey of one man who kept asking himself, “Who am I?” He did not find himself in the Law. Neither did he fully find himself when He became a Christian. It took him the long journey of his life, through the trials of conflict and the forgiveness he encountered in his friendships, to understand the true nature and the depth of God’s love for him.
Perhaps it was only at the end of his life, when he was preparing for martyrdom, that Paul finally understood how God sees him – that God loved and accepted him exactly as he was. Paul’s earthly journey ends as he finally embraces who he is – God’s beloved child.
On inspiration, and speaking from the depth of my own conversion experience, I chipped in to help the scriptwriters and directors explain the personal journey of Paul (without having read the script) when a team member asked for clarification. They said I had summed up beautifully the essence of the entire musical exactly as they mean to portray it. Faces lit up around the meeting table as the significance of Paul’s story got imprinted into our hearts.
Between last night and this morning, a few more key roles in our committee were filled – just like that. I feel so strongly that God is assuring the team that He has got our backs. We’re simply to share this journey with one another and witness God’s love in every thing that we do. God will provide us with all that we need.
Journey of the Heart 