Taking a deep breath and peering out through her fading eyes, a love of 57 years shifts her gaze to her husband. He sits as full of life as a recoiling heart ready to feed life-blood to a starved figure. Tears flow like lost treasures down his cheek; that stern cheek that had been dry these many years.
In the light and company of his new found congregation of gathered neighbors in this world, a father, who is of usual wrought with concern for the daily duty of watching over his children, turns to see his entire family laughing in one crystalline moment. His teenage daughter, whose eyes and forehead have already begun to furrow with too much concern, is now animated; ablaze like a star, with joy for the first time in their past 6 years.
With eyes fixed on the lights ahead of her, a woman who lost her son finds release in the human and angelic transmissions that move and resound before her. The air entering her lungs rides the landscape of her rugged history like a waterfall of some forgotten oasis. She truly breathes for the first time in 21 years. The hand of her wife slips silently into hers. They are transformed.
A young man stares at the stage, as if looking into a mirror for the first time and seeing an illuminated self. In this coming year, he will no longer cower in the company of his classmates and professors. He will rise with a voice and self-image that will take him on a new path, raising him to become a leader in his community and nation.
Without a drug, in the company of a full and public place, all of these human beings have come back to life; back to their own deeply important self-truths. Each is an independent and singular collection of genes, incidents and energies that no other could truly understand.
Such moments as these have happened this year in the audiences of the Woodstock Playhouse. The Theater is an honoring of Humanity and Understanding; and when prepared correctly, the medicine of humankind.
So please, I have no pride and do indeed beg you; when you consider bolstering the fine work of a Non-Profit in your community, state or nation, know that the work of the theater is not to be dismissed or overlooked. The souls of our humanity are underserved in our present state of the nation. Non-Profit Theaters need your monetary assistance to reach the full potential of their humanitarian works in our society.
Search out your local, state or national theater, or visit www.WoodstockPlayhouse.org to make a contribution and raise a toast to their important work in the days ahead in this coming New Year.
Cheers to you and yours for a bright New Year.
