Come up to the lab and see what's on the slab

I enjoy "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

I've seen it a couple of times in movie houses and a couple of times at home, and I own the DVD. I confess, the only audience-participation line I know is "Eddie, get your ass off the table!" and I'm not exactly sure where to yell it. I don't want to dress as Magenta for Halloween and as much as I like Tim Curry, his performance in lingerie disturbs me, primarily because he's so much prettier than I.

Still, it's a lot of fun.

As a not-at-all avid play-goer, I was looking forward to my town's fall community theater production of RHPS, thinking I may actually be persuaded to get off my behind and do one of those things that sounds fun, for once.

And then a video of the R-rated production's rehearsal made its way into the hands of the city manager, then the mayor. All politics aside, this man claims to know this town well enough to shut down the play, presumably to protect us from ourselves.

At last count, more than 600 people had "liked" a Facebook page supporting the production. Perhaps, mere weeks before its scheduled opening, RHPS can find another local venue. Perhaps not.

I am neither callow nor retarded. I do not need one more person who never has met me but claims to know me -- because I fit a particular demographic, perhaps? -- using his perceived political, religious, financial, educational or moral superiority to make my entertainment choices for me.

"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." (Robert Heinlein, The Man Who Sold the Moon)

Rock on, Rocky Horror!

Someday....

Someday, you will decide that loving another person completely means giving up any hope of being loved in return. You will understand your worth is in your capacity to love that other person, not in whether or how much s/he loves you. Your choice will be to love without condition or expectation, and that choice will be yours alone.

In that moment, finally, you and God will be at peace with one another.

From that moment until you cease to operate your own mind, you will give up any conscious claim on your soul. You will not be damaged by the people or things of this world, so your world will expand. You will hear God's voice in angry music and in the rustle of autumn leaves. You will see God's beauty in tattoo ink and in a pink and purple sunset.

You will initiate 100 conversations, send 1,000 cards, bake 10,000 birthday cupcakes and dry 1,000,000,000 tears, yet your own struggles may be singular and silent. But you will not choose fear while you are alone and hurting; you will choose power, and love, and a strong mind. You will choose to accept responsibility for your mistakes and, sometimes, for others' mistakes as well. You will choose to sacrifice your pride, and in so doing, you will experience grace as you learn to forgive and to accept forgiveness.

Occasionally, God may allow you the privilege of seeing others through His eyes. In those moments, you will choose not to be confused or frustrated or repulsed or enraged by the way they act or write or look or talk or think. Instead, you will choose to see how completely He loves others -- not just the ones who love Him back, but also the ones who pretend to, and the ones who wish they knew how.

The choice to love someone else completely may mean never experiencing that kind of love yourself. It might rob you of everything you are or want to be, but the Bible says there is no greater love than to lay down your life for someone else.

By choosing that greatest love, you also choose to become who you were born to be.

Someday.