This passage exemplifies for me the nature of God’s work in building and sustaining relationships with us. It tells the theological story of Christ’s personhood and God-hood, and the messy, beautiful mix that it is.
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We will be in the middle of a deep conversation, or a story, and suddenly she is silent. No more talking, no more footsteps. I look back only to find her crouched down looking at the smallest mushroom with the most vibrant purple hue. “I should have been a mycologist," she says, looking at me with the utmost sincerity.
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On the improv stage, yes can transform two chairs and an empty stage into an imaginative scene of relationship and impossibility. With one audience suggestion, soon comes an encounter of a famous baby doing a book-signing, a law student in relationship with a cursed sorting hat, a couple arguing about giving birth to an avocado.
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We all stand in different areas of the room, with our faces to the wall. The topic is five major feelings: joy/happiness, passion/desire, anger, sadness, and fear. With one emotion at a time, we are asked to express our feeling, in hand gestures, words and their content, tone and volume of voice, expressive body language, facial expressions.
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In the container of improv, anything can happen. Such are the very bones and basis of improvised comedy: it is made up entirely on the spot. Never before has this show been performed, never again shall it be revisited. The epitome of you-had-to-be-there experience, even the performers are unaware of what is about to occur between them when they step out on stage.
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Sometimes, I dislike people.
I am not defending or proud of this fact; I am simply confessing. Some people have a quality or affect, a sense of humor, a way of being that can grate on my nerves, ruffles my feathers, even makes me feel uncomfortable or annoyed.
Improv classes are a constant stream of new discovery and activity. A new warm up is taught to the group, we learn it and try it, we practice and stumble. Someone messes up in the warm-up exercise, a rhythm gets off, someone whooshes instead of pows, laughter ensues. After all, we are standing in a circle ready with playful, silly energy.
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Listening is a key component to effective communication in improv, to the work of collaboratively making scenes up on the spot.
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It scares me to go out on stage.
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You already belong. Be who you are.
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Improvised comedy begins with “Yes, and.”
Yes.
I agree to the name you just gave me, the relationship you clarified, and to the situation you established.
And.
As a personal spiritual discipline of late, I have been taking improv comedy classes at the Dallas Comedy House. In improv class we begin with a few warm-ups. They move the body and get the blood flowing, they help lower our defenses and embrace the playfulness of the environment, they get us engaged. They help us practice saying yes, being present, and supporting one another.
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