Years ago I used to travel the state of Ohio as an artist-in-education for the state Arts Council. I taught playwrighting, storytelling, and some puppetry as well. I had a cloth bag full of little "work puppets," simple cloth puppets with button eyes and yarn hair which could be used in any kind of story a child could make up. Those work puppets gave pleasure and play and learning to so many, many people - students, teachers, me - and so it was sad when they met their surprising demise in a fire which burned up many of the things I had stored with friends while I was on the road.
I had begun to think of myself as a kind of work puppet, at times. That is, I was surrendered - still am - to a higher task, and I don't really know what's coming next: who will make me a character in their drama for a while, or how long I'll be stuffed into a bag in the dark this time, or any number of other options. As a surrendered person, although I have emotions and feelings, I also have a sense of when something is not personal but rather a challenge which I need to see through the lens of detatchment, to see the work ahead in light of the highest good of a group or even the whole of humanity, or the whole planet. That level of surrender means I need to be a character in God's drama. I wonder how many humans feel as if they're a little glove puppet riding on the hand of God sometimes? I bet I'm not alone in that.
Sometimes, then, I'm the puppeteer - but often as not, I'm the puppet.
Work puppet - that's me.
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Comments: 26
Carolion - just dropping by a few of my friends before we finally - yay - head out for Germany tomorrow morning:) I'll be back the end of August.
U wishing you laughter
I love how your writing attacks this otherness that we naturally cling to,
Rose, I wish you the very best on your journey. If you catch any street puppeteers in action, let me know - I'd love an article about that over in ON WITH THE SHOW!
And Flit - oh, dear Flit - please, please would you consider writing a piece about your puppetry experience and sending it over to ON WITH THE SHOW!????
Jan - Oh, thank you! I'm smiling here - about the title of the article and the content - that "God made me do it." (c:*
Rob, it is funny, isn't it, how sometimes we writers use words sort of like the woodpecker uses its beak - to make holes in things so the energy can flow more freely. Thank you for noticing. And - it takes one to know one.
I do hope you make new puppets. Any opportunity to share joy -- even if it is only with family and close friends for a while -- is enlightening.
When Music Al the Xylogator wakes me up with a bright idea for a new song he plans to teach to the world, I both grin and groan......If Al is going to teach the world, that means I've got to travel with him - how else would a little green plastic guy on wheels with a blue shoe-string for a pull-along string, travel the world? Who knows all his songs? Me, that's who. "Just" a puppet? Not Al!
Lol - to Al, though, I might very possibly be "just" a puppeteer!
..
U wishing you laughter
Jim recently performed a hand puppet show, a mostly traditional Punch and Judy, at our library. The meeting room was packed to overflowing with an all-ages audience who were enchanted and delighted. Hooray for puppetry!!!!
"As a surrendered person, although I have emotions and feelings, I also have a sense of when something is not personal but rather a challenge which I need to see through the lens of detatchment, to see the work ahead in light of the highest good of a group or even the whole of humanity, or the whole planet."
I feel the same way, but without your belief in God.