Author: Henry O. Arnold

In an article in the “Journal of the American Revolution,” David Malinsky writes that the First Continental Congress passed the Articles of Association making a distinction between what were acceptable pastimes and what were not: “…and we will discountenance and discourage every species of extravagance and dissipation, especially all horse-racing, all kinds of gaming, cockfighting, exhibitions of shows, plays and other expensive diversions and entertainments.”

This declaration had a chilling effect leaving theaters empty and even forcing one homegrown theater troupe, the American Company, to leave the country and set up shop in Jamaica. Big, bad politicians huffed and puffed, and for a time, blew the house down. Around the same time, individual states also passed laws banning plays, and in 1794, the president of Yale College, Timothy Dwight IV, declared in his “Essay on the Stage,” that “to indulge a taste for play-going means nothing more or less than the loss of that most valuable treasure: the immortal soul.”

Apparently a few of our founding fathers did not subscribe to this proclamation. George Washington recorded detailed entries in his diaries commenting on his frequent attendance at theaters in Williamsburg, Philadelphia, New York, and Alexandria, Virginia to see productions by professional acting troupes. Washington had favorite actors and was known to attend a production he liked more than once. According to Odai Johnson in his book, “Jefferson and The Colonial American Stage,” Thomas Jefferson and Washington attended the same theatrical performance on eight occasions. 

The efforts of some to block or ban what they deemed offensive or distasteful has been going on since…well, forever. Fortunately, arts and entertainment have survived and thrived regardless of efforts to restrict or prohibit artistic expression. Imagine wagging a finger at God and admonishing, “Hide the naughty parts,” when it came to sculpting Adam and Eve.

There is an expression of someone being “raised right.” I’m not sure of its origin, but I do believe my siblings and I were raised right by parents who gave us a beautiful mixture of a living, breathing faith that looks like something, and a passion for and participation in the creation of all things artistic. This includes a love for all those individuals involved in such pursuits. Our imagination might be the greatest gift we humans have and such a gift cannot be banned by laws or restricted by misguided biases.

I have often been asked the favorite character I have played. My standard answer has been, “the one I am currently playing.” I don’t mean that as a smug response to a genuine inquiry, but the question is difficult to answer. I have been so fortunate to play such a variety of roles, both small and large, and each one brings a richness to my life.

I rarely repeat a role, but there is one role I never tire of playing, Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol.” I am thrilled to perform this role again in a production with Rabbit Room Theatre. (check the RR website for all info) This new adaptation by A.S. Peterson is the best version of the play I’ve ever read.

In preparing for this role, Mr. Peterson sent me a one-man play written by Dean Batali based on Charles Dickens’ notes and thoughts on the creation of this classic story. As I studied this excellent work I discovered some interesting thoughts on the combination of the words “Bah,” and “Humbug.”

The word “humbug” was widely used long before Dickens employed it. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, humbug referred to “a hoax; a jesting or befooling trick,” as well as any “thing which is not really what it pretends to be,” like a sham or fraud. And as for “Bah,” well, it is simply a one-syllable noise used to express contempt and annoyance. And “bah” means “bah” in any language.

Dickens points out that while he did not invent either word, he does credit himself as the one who put the two words together and in that order. Whenever Scrooge is saluted with a “Merry Christmas” his response is “Bah”, the rejection of all-things represented in the merriment of the season. But when hailed with “God save you,” his reply is “Humbug.” This is a rejection of redemption itself. Scrooge thinks he does not require redemption and has no inkling that he is about to receive its offer.

The hounds of heaven in the form of four different spirits come on a rescue mission for Mr. Scrooge. These spirits will take a chisel to the hardened heart of this man. What will be found inside the cemented casement? You must come and see.

An engagement, a marriage, unemployment for one spouse, pregnancy, eviction, multiple living quarters including an unfinished attic, the kickoff of a writing career, the arrival of a first child, unemployment for the other spouse, all followed by a cross-country move with a four-month old daughter leaving behind kith and kin in search of fame and fortune. What do all these factors have in common? You guess it…Kay and Chip. Oh yeah, and cram all these events into fourteen months.

I can think back on some of the decisions and choices I’ve made in life and wonder, “What was I thinking,” but marrying Kay was not one of them. After we signed, sealed, and transacted the ceremony, we headed off to Green Turtle Cay for our honeymoon. Green Turtle is a three-mile long, one half mile wide island accessible only by boat.

There were a few bungalows scattered about on both ends of the island, and on the central part there was the yacht club and a small, gated community of luxury homes owned by the gentry from other countries. We were the only ones to have rented a bungalow for that week, so the whole southern end of the island was ours. To see other humans required a walk into the village. We made the trek once, maybe twice.

When we returned from Green Turtle, life rapidly descended into chaos: lost jobs, lost housing; and within two months of our “I do’s,” lost autonomy of our couple-hood. My mother fondly called our honeymoon spot, “Fertile Green Turtle.” Nine months and four days after the wedding (Yes, Mother was counting the days), we were blessed with our first daughter.

Now when faced with the heavy realities of life, the expectation was that I should step up and take responsibility. “Get a real job,” I was told by one person, and “The Lord helps those who help themselves,” I was informed by another. Well-meaning though not biblical advice as the quotes infered.

In the midst of our topsy-turvy world, I chose not to look for that “real job,” but to write a biblical play on the apostle Paul. He had a “real job” until he took that road to Damascus. His life was turned upside down, but out of his experience a new world was created. We are all world-builders. Don’t be afraid of that Damascus road before you. Take it and create a world from all your adventures. One must live the adventure before it’s told.

Socrates said, “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” Through the art of storytelling, I as a writer and actor, want to convey in words an idea or belief that might entertain or inspire a reader or an audience, to strengthen the heart and mind, to enliven the soul, to boost a deeper sense of our place in the world and the beauty found therein.

Encouraging words are like precious gems that can gladden the heart of the one who hears them, but also the one who speaks them. The speaker has had to go through the mental process of thinking of good words to say. It is a thoughtful process weighing the proper words. When we consider how we might speak words of encouragement to someone, we are not just thinking about what they might want to hear, but also what we might want to have someone say to us.

A couple of Hebrew proverbs come to mind. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Anyone with the ability to speak wields power, but have we ever considered just how powerful? This proverb states that what we say, the words we use to communicate, can influence life or death. There are consequences to everything we say. Our words can bring healing and comfort (life) or can break a heart with discouragement and despondency (death). Control over what we say and how we say it is important.

One proverb that inspires conversation is Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” When we spend quality time engaged in social interaction our hearts and minds are stimulated and we develop and improve our personal character and deepen our relationships with other people.

The “iron sharpens iron” should not be interpreted as combative. It is like filing down an object to make it sharper, more useful, keener in purpose. Listening and conversing can equip us with knowledge we might not have known before or help us unlearn something that we thought we knew but knew incorrectly.

Good words brings joy, they provide insight, deepen the truth, expose falsehood, and can strengthen our souls, so use them well and often.

One time our daughter Lauren asked her son how he might describe Kay. His answer was immediate. “Angels Ascending,” he said. Ah, how sweet, you say. But wait, there’s more. It was not long after that we received a call from said daughter worried about an excess if influence her mother had on her children.

The complaint had to do with Kay’s lullaby catalog sung to the grands when she puts them to bed. I had long since been banned from lullaby duty. The times I would pinch-hit for Kay all I came up with was “Stairway to Heaven” and “Born to be Wild;” lullabies good enough to sing to my own girls when they were growing up but were now deemed questionable. I blame the parenting craze for that.

What precipitated the call, you ask? The parents were in the car with the kids when they began singing, “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” The lyric sung by the grands began with the number ten and not the compulsory number in the title. To be sure of what they heard, the parents listened to a few more musical rounds until the number dropped to seven. The parents first inquired of each other to see if either of them had taught the kids that song, but both denied the charge. Then they questioned the cherubs in the backseat.

“Guys, where did you learn that song?” asked the parents in unison.

The grands got quiet. By the tone of the inquisition, they suspected trouble.

Then they blurted in unison, “Kayme!”

The horror. The horror. And straight to the speed dial the daughter did go.

As soon as Kay answered her phone the third degree began, though it did not last long. Kay laughingly confessed. On the night in question while the parents were out on a date and after the grands were tucked into bed, Kay began to sing her standards. But on this particular night, the grands were more amped up than usual.

Kay had come to the end of her play list, but those crazy kids wanted more. So she reached back to the long ago, and “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” bubbled forth; this from the grandmother who has never consumed a bottle of beer in her life. Now the song has a fixed place in Kay’s lullaby repertoire. You gotta love this woman.

It is my lot to live with an angel, the comparisons are glaringly obvious, but she is fortunate that I am able to hold her feet on the ground and keep her from ascending too high.

I tried to be a good parent. It wasn’t easy trying to balance out the good parenting with the bad parenting. Like the time when Kristin and Lauren were eight and six and they asked if they could play on the tin roof of our large shed. What a great idea. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? So I tossed them up onto the roof and went about my business. I have no idea what business I had to be about, but I went about it.

It wasn’t long before I heard a thud, followed by a gasp, followed by the cry of “Daddy!” I immediately stopped being about my business and rushed to the scene (a sign of good parenting for sure). Poor Kristin was lying on the ground with two broken wrists. Lauren was still up on the roof.

“Daddy, we were having a cartwheel contest and Kristin fell off,” Lauren cried. Now I could have paused for a bad parenting moment to point out numerous reasons why their choice of activities while on a twelve-foot high tin roof was a poor one, but being the good parent I was, I chose to shout for Kay.

We got Kristin to the ER and they applied the splints. Then we went to another hospital to meet up with the orthopedic surgeon. He came sauntering in (cowboy hat, western shirt, blue jeans with a belt buckle the size of a Red Delicious apple), took one look at the x-rays, then picked up one of Kristin’s pitiful wrists and began to knead it until he located the break and snapped it back into place. He did the same to the other wrist. Then took more x-rays to evaluate his work. One and done, so he instructed the nurses to “Cast her up.” Start to finish, he took, maybe thirty minutes.

Traditional bonesetters relied only on the touch of their hands to tell if a bone was fractured or broken. I realized that other than Kristin not having to bit down on a bullet to endure the pain or the doctor having to figure how to proceed without the benefit of the x-ray, this surgeon was doing what the ancient medicine people did…use their hands…touching to heal.

I love this quote from “Seeds of Contemplation” by Thomas Merton: “As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is a resetting of a body of broken bones.”

This spiritual image affords us the opportunity to look at one another and see the broken bones concealed inside our bodies. All manner of disguises will not conceal our true broken natures, so be gentle, be kind, be healing.

Long before the high-tech music machines and pipe organs of today with all of their fancy bells and whistles (pun intended), there was the pump organ that required a two-man team to play it: one on the keyboard to play the music, the other to manually pump the bellows hidden behind the organ that fed the massive pipes with air. One could not exist without the other.

This story was given to me by my musician friend, Tommy Baily, so I thank him as my source. Back in 18th century France organists would tour cathedrals giving recitals. In one French city a famous musician came to town to give a series of sold out concerts. The first night concert was a huge success with a standing ovation at the end.

As the famous organist was leaving the concert hall, the young man who had been pumping the bellows came up to the organist and said, “We had a great performance tonight, didn’t we?”

“We didn’t have anything,” replied the haughty organist. “I had a great performance.”

The next night when the concert started and the organist began to play the music, there was no sound coming from the pipes. He kept playing, waiting for music to soar through the pipes, but it never did. So, the organist went around back and yelled at the young man, “What is going on back here?”

The young man looked at him and said, “It looks like you are not having a great performance tonight.”

We get through life “with a little help from our friends.” It is what makes our journey tolerable, and at times, enjoyable. There are so many people in our life that remain in the background but should be acknowledged for any success we might enjoy. That is why authors have “Acknowledgement” pages in their books.

And I never do a show without thanking and praising the hard work of those who are never seen by the audience. Their names are in the program but they remain hidden from sight. Backstage crews are as vital to the success of any performance as those of us who make “their exits and entrances” on the stage. All hail to the bellows players. All hail to the publishing and editorial teams. All hail to the backstage crews.

When I was age twenty there was a lot of raging going on in this country: Vietnam, Civil Rights, street riots, burning buildings, mass demonstrations on college campuses with multiple killings—remember Kent State (white kids murdered)? Remember Jackson State (black kids murdered)?

Those were the daily headlines back then. There was a “famine in the land” for a true word. I am over seven decades into this life, and I can say with King Solomon, there is nothing new under the sun. We still rage. We are still brutal. Our souls are wasting away because our conversations lack true words.

We are complex human beings. The fabric of our souls is thin and woven together with delicate threads. The space between us can be measured in widths of hair follicles. When I meet and converse with people who might be different from me in so many ways, I still hope for a human-to-human connection. Each time we meet and with each conversation, a layer of human connection is added and we take a step closer to true fellowship.

There is a spiritual component at play here. It is more than just reaching across the divide. It is a giving up, a losing of oneself. Self-help is not the way. It is self-sacrifice. Jesus said if you want to find yourself, you have to lose yourself. It is a divine paradox that defies all manner of personal vanities, defies all the raging for those self-important rights and privileges. And it is hard work. Sacrifice always is.

We are capable of civility. It begins with conversations that are equal parts listening and speaking, equal parts conviction and empathy, and equal parts understanding and forgiveness. We all desire it. We must first be willing to offer it.

On the surface, many conversations may not have the qualities of what we expect from long-term friendships. But kind words spoken are the forays into a deepening relationship. It is the frequency of encounters that matters. It is the generosity of spirit that counts. It is the respect and dignity we offer each other by pausing in our day to look each other in the eye and speak kind words and blessing.

My father taught music and theatre at Lipscomb University for over thirty years, plus he was the worship leader for the chapel services. During my period as a prodigal, the strain on the father/son relationship was heavy. But in time we were reconciled and took joy in one another. That was a miracle I attribute to divine Providence; I needed the miracle of repentance while Dad needed the miracle of patience.

Back in the 1980s I created three one-man shows. The most popular was “The Word Made Flesh,” the story of Jesus compiled from the four Gospels. Dad invited me to perform a portion of this show for a chapel service. Not long afterwards I received an invitation from the higher-ups at the University to do a full show for their annual “High School Day.” Kids came from all over the country and spent a weekend on the campus and I was to be the closing night entertainment. Dad had brought a guest to the show, a recovering alcoholic, someone he was mentoring. So like Dad.

I’d played for a few high school audiences and hated it, but this was a paying gig, so I girded up my loins and prepared for the worst. While pacing backstage and listening to the hubbub of 1,500 rowdy kids on the opposite side of the curtain, I kept wondering how in the world did I get here and how I might pull off a vanishing act at the last second.

Then a mysterious heaviness came over me, a feeling that I was to give a personal testimony to these kids. Whoa! Not part of the deal. I knew it wasn’t the butterflies working overtime, and the feeling only got stronger, like God squeezing my heart. So I made a bargain. Big mistake. Never negotiate a deal with God using terms you lay out. I said, “If these kids give me a standing ovation, I will give a testimony of my past life and new faith.” Kids never give a standing ovation, so I was confident of my advantage.

For over an hour, those kids were respectful, listening with intent, laughing when appropriate and quiet when the story turned somber. At the end of the show during the blackout, I kept repeating, “Don’t stand. Don’t stand.” But when the lights came up for my curtain call, the kids were on their feet. So much for the effectiveness of my incantation.

I testified that in the not-so-long-ago I had embraced a waywardness I regretted. Then I pointed to my father up in the balcony and said that he was the reason I was here tonight; that my earthly and heavenly fathers had rescued me, enabled me to be forgiven, to be justified, and to be loved. The kids weren’t really sure what to make of this, but the moment wasn’t really for them. And when I reflect on that occasion, I really did get the better end of the bargain.

My artistic life was and is never predictable, so I was pleasantly surprised when (a very long time ago), I was hired to produce a dramatized version of the New Testament using multiple actors, with music and sound effects. The text would be the King James Version chosen by the executive producer, i.e. “The Money,” because the KJV was public domain and royalty free.

Because of my theatrical experience and classical training, “The Money” wanted me to read the role of Jesus. The KJV is similar in style and language to that of Shakespeare, so I was thrilled to have this opportunity. I embraced this project, heart and soul, but with no practical sense of what it meant to produce such a mammoth project.

When I rode in “The Money’s” Silver Cloud Rolls Royce to the lawyer’s office to draw up the contract, I regretted not taking that business class in college. The contract favored “The Money.” I was given a fixed budget, which meant, by the time I turned in the finished recording, I was paid the equivalent of a convict’s wages. But I did get to hire several actor friends, including my sister and my father, which was a supreme blessing.

“The Money” immediately began a direct-mail sales campaign. His hope was to get a big-time televangelist to endorse the product and pick our dramatized New Testament as a give-away for their fundraising appeals. When “The Money” got word from a leading televangelist of the day that he liked the product but could not stand the guy who played Jesus, “The Money” made an executive decision: re-record the Gospels with a new Jesus. I was replaced by the silky-smooth voice of a small-time radio host.

I only found out about the switcheroo because the radio host called to apologize. The televangelist had not liked the way I spoke the King’s English with such passion or dramatic intent. I guess Jesus used his silky-smooth voice when kicking the merchants out of the Temple, or sweating blood in Gethsemane as he prayed, or crying out to God while dying on the cross. So silky-smooth radio host beat out the classically trained actor.

Not long after that the big-time televangelist got his show canceled because of inappropriate behavior outside of his marriage bed. “The Money” had to pull the product and eat the capital outlay. Was there gloating? Was there a happy dance at this downfall? I hate to admit that I did take pleasure in seeing the mighty fall, but it quickly became a bitter pleasure. There was no vindication for me. There was no winner. We had all fallen victim to the age-old evil of overweening pride. Ouch.