Verbs and Nouns

I’ve had several opportunities lately to go see plays, people always think that since I spent 17 years working in the theater I must love going to plays.  And sure, there are a number of things that I would love to go see, but for the most part, I’m far more interested in theater as a verb than I am in theater as a noun.

I love doing theater, building shows, running shows, striking shows.  Theater is an activity for me, an activity where I work hard to produce something for someone else, for the audience.  What’s important is not the thing that is created but that the thing is created and that I had something to do with it.

I was watching QVC sell Junior’s Cheesecakes this afternoon, and it struck me that I feel the same way about food and baking.  Cheesecakes are wonderful things but I would rather spend my time making one than eating one.

Over the eight years that I worked at my last job before seminary, I probably baked more than 150 birthday cakes for my friends and co-workers.  I enjoyed the time and effort making the cakes more than I ever enjoyed eating them.  Most of the time, I have little or no interest in eating the things I have made; again, the work of making the thing, the verbing of it, means more to me than the object itself, the noun of it.

As I have thought about this, I’ve realized I have the same feelings about worship and the church.  I want worship to be a verb, something I do, more than something I just watch or experience.  I want to be involved in the planning and execution of the worship service, and even when I can’t do that, I want worship that is designed to make the people in the pews an active part of the service.

I don’t know what all this says about me.  I’m sure some Meyers-Briggs person will say, “that’s because you’re a PQRS,” or whatever those letters that are supposed to tell us everything about ourselves are.  (I’ve never gotten the same set of letters twice, so I’ve never taken it very seriously.)  But it’s something to think about as I look for a job.

Comments

[jessica]

i feel the same way about all three things. Especially after baking lots of Christmas cookies someone else ate this week, and just finishing a performance of our winter play a few minutes ago. One of the few things I miss about going to st. Paul is that First has never asked me to be liturgist, and at st. Paul they even let me plan youth services and stuff, I miss the activity, and I’m not even trained yet.

[1-4 Grace]

I love your comments about worship being a verb, not a noun for you. I've struggled with getting folsk more active in helping plan and execute (okay, not a good verb to use, but ya get the point!) worship services and to find new ways of brining worship more alive for all, and to make it meaningful. It is tough work, lots of ideas may float around, but not so many ready to get invovled and help. And, well sometimes folks want the attention getting spots and not the the behind the sceens stuff. I love behind the scenes. What good is theatre without folsk to run sound/lights/ special effects? It reminds me of Paul's words regarding the many parts of a body. They all got something to do, and they all got to do their soemthing to do together or nothing works right (ARSV- a really simplified version!)

[Alex]

Love the comment about the Myers-Briggs... I've never gotten the same results twice, either! Great post.