April 11, 1998

DONKEY

On the north edge of Eden, North Carolina, I happened to see a donkey that was in a playground of a church. Curiosity got the best of me because I turned around and headed back to the church. I was glad that I did.

It turns out that the Osborne Baptist Church was putting on something like a Passion Play in the form of musical called "Light of Life". The people that I talked to were some of the church members and also some of the actors. There were at least one hundred fifty actors in the play that lasted for around two and a half hours.

One of the actors "Gabby Newton" (who played one of the Roman guards) latched onto me. Before the service started, Gabby went out to get me dinner. I stayed in the dressing room eating the dinner while the cast was a getting prepared.BR>
I had seen the play performed at another church but I was quite curious to see all of the differences. The play and the music were good. The Jewish symbols of the menorah and the tallits (prayer shawls) were really great as was the music. It really tickled me when I saw that the people who played the Sanhedrin wore hats like the whipples that old-style Catholic nuns wore.

I was really moved by the person who played Y'shua. For some reason, I felt that I needed to give him the kippa (skull cap) that I had been carrying with me. I had been worried that it might have gotten damaged. It had been given to me by a friend when she went over to Israel. I had stopped wearing a kippa during church services because the tallit that I had owned had been stolen from me last year in the attack and robbery.

Before the musical ended, I was convinced that I had to give it to him. The poem the "Road of Life" said that I had to share the gifts that I had. He was really moved when I presented it to him. It turned out that he had been struggling a lot with a lot of things including spiritual matters.

After most of the actors left the church, Gabby offered to take me home with him. Liz (my bike) and the rest of my gear was left at the church and I would pick them up after tomorrow's service.