2 Friend’s mother-in-law.
3 I should have majored in this.
4 The good thing is that I had a safe and spiritual ride home from San Francisco.
5 Thank goodness my life is that movie 50 First Dates.
6 I’m approaching that entire thing of I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.
7 AnywayZ…
8 The funeral is today, but for the life of me, I can’t remember who died.
9 Oh!
10 Friend’s mother-in-law.
11 That’s right.
12 Just kiddin’.
13 Holy shit.
14 I meant that about the wake.
15 They’re Greek.
16 So their was a lot of Holy shit going on in the cathedral. Incense, statues, reverse signs-of-the-cross, chantings, etc.
17 I saw an old friend at the wake. He’s actually a young friend in my frabjous eyes.
18 We walked into the chapel, looked around at all of the statues of Jesus and stuff, and I asked him this:
19 Where’s Zeus?
20 Ah, yeesh.
21 I think I hold the world’s record for going to wakes.
22 It’s sort of dangerous to go to any sort of wake on St. Patrick’s day.
23 As always, it put everything into proper perspective.
24 Is anybody reading this stuff?
25 Probably not.
26 Or maybe so.
27 AnywayZ…
28 The first part is done. I always look to see the meaning of life in these things, and I always walk away feeling still more spiritual.
29 Pretty typical, I imagine.
30 But got home late. Never a good thing, except that I had a spiritual occurrence on my drive home.
31 I had the entire last part of Godspell on my CD player, and blasted the Long Live God/Prepare Ye finale stuff.
32 Right when the singer chimed in “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord”, I had an electric chill zap my entire body.
33 I swear to you. People talk about those moments, and I always figure that they are just thinking they had some sort of religious thing happen.
34 This was real.
35 I swear to you.
36 Maybe I’ve had just too much of this stuff the last few years, and maybe it just all came to a head.
37 But last night I got zapped. No question.
38 In many ways, I loved it.
39 It wasn’t just soulful or spiritual; it was like a jolt of pure joy.
40 But something really spiritual and physical happened all at once.
41 If that was a taste of heaven, then bring it.
42 I couldn’t help wondering how many other people that has happened to.
43 Don’t know, really. I have a funeral to hit today, and maybe more will happen.
44 I sure hope so. I felt some sort of amazing feeling going through my entire being. Never happened before. It was physically similar to when someone opens a door in the winter and a blast of cold air hits you, only WAY more joy, and much warmer!
45 Just curious, I guess. I’m a pretty practical person, so this was new.
46 Whatever it was, I liked it. Godspell always worked for me anyway. I was on God’s freeway last night. I swear to you.
47 Moving on, Part the First: Maybe yesterday was some sort of sign. Iono. But listen: THREE times I got applauded by my students for my lesson on the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.
48 All I did was give a brief lesson on Shakespeare’s rhythms, and pushed “play” on a CD of the balcony scene.
49 In every single class, even the slowest students were rivited and following, because they understood the language. I stood astonished.
50 Maybe I’m just seeing that the light went on.
51 Lights go on.
56 I looked around all day long at my most disinterested students. To a person they had the book open and read along with what I call my Cheap Cuts O’ Actors’ CD. It is the one provided with the textbook.
57 When we finished, there was applause. I then had all six thousand papers I have been grading passed back by class angels. While they passed them out, I played an audio of the selfsame balcony scene using Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting from Zefirrelli’s R and J. Perfect backdrop to having papers handed out.
58 So a grand day, really. Applause for a lesson, a passing that brings good friends together, and a ride home with Godspell blasting. And some sort of spiritual jolt.
59 Life’s good.
60 Gottago.
61 Peace.
~H~