Glass Menagerie

Ben and I just finished reading it aloud.

Typical tragedy:

• discontented mother nags
• discontented son flies
• discontented daughter withdraws

This is the stuff that stage tragedy is made of. The most dramatic effect of all is that I've been reading GM with my own son.

::Feels an overwhelming gush of sentimentality sweeping upon her. Thinks to herself that this is probably the last time she’ll ever read a play aloud with one of her kids.::

::Comforts herself by recalling that she and her son agreed to catch the next live GM performance that comes to town.::

In the kitchen Ben and I perform our own impromptu version of the play thusly:

Me: rattles off a series of ridiculous demands,
Ben: mumbles that he’s going to the movies now.

Tom's final words on stage reveals a restless heart - the same kind of discontented heart laid bare in many a rock song:

"TOM: I didn't go to the moon. I went much further--for time is the longest distance between two places. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoebox. I left St. Louis. I descended the steps of the fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from their branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger--anything that can blow your candles out!"

I put in bold the words that struck me. They speak volumes. So many frantically fill up their lives with movement; scared to think of what they'd discover if they ever stop. The chase is all that matters.

But life shouldn't find its purpose in movement. A sedentary life isn't the answer either, but if we could only be guided and moved along with a purpose!

The Lord Jesus Christ does move powerfully in lives. Oh to be profoundly impacted by the the Lord in His Word! Verses like Colossians 3:3 and Phlippians 1:21 point to the One who gives real purpose to life.

"For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God."

and "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."


Just now, I spied a Morrisons bag from Scotland in my tiny bathroom - reminds me that the present can never quite leave the past behind. I feel the movement as I type in this dark room of mirrors. Right now I'm cold, but content. I smile because my real life is hid in Christ.