Today students finished reading Screwtape Letter 26. We are going to quickly finish reading Screwtape Letters this week. You should finish reading all letters (epilogue optional) by this Friday. Instead of writing two more angel letters, please just write one (angel letter #9). We will begin reading Les Miserables on Monday!
Students submitted their top two topics for Screwtape Ads.
We did a complete read-through of our class devotional script. Students should immediately begin rehearsing their parts. (Note, a few changes will occur. For example, we are working on cutting the Angel and Devil Letters down in length, but for the most part the script is set.)
The Gardener
10th Grade Class Devotional 2015
Program Design: Alan Cui and Hannah Weyland
Technical Director: Nathan Holmstead
Music Coordinator: Eliza Dalton
Opening Prayer: Colin Nielson
[A large artificial olive tree is on stage right. The tree is backlit to make it glow. Literature scenes will be depicted on stage left where a desk and bed suggest a room. Projector screen visible from behind. Shotgun microphones will be directed to both sides of the stage. Podium at the front, stage left with fixed microphone. Upright piano below the stage. Music stands and chairs for strings front stage right.]
Narrator (Nathan Holmstead):
In Jacob Chapter 5, we can read the “Allegory of the Olive Tree”. Although not intended to be a political history, this allegory does provide a spiritual history of the world. In the story, the Lord of the Vineyard has a tame olive tree whose fruit is most precious unto Him. This tree represents the House of Israel, God’s chosen people. As children of the covenant, we have been chosen.
Narrator (David Cowley):
This year we read a novel called The Chosen by Chaim Potok. In this book, the protagonist Reuven Malters discovers that he has been chosen to be friends with an ultra-orthodox Jewish boy named Danny Saunders. Reuven’s father explains that being chosen is not easy:
Mr. Malter (Brantley Johnson): [costume: suit and yarmulke]
“You think a friend is an easy thing to be? If you are truly his friend, you will discover otherwise.”
Narrator (Angela Gerlach):
Being chosen to be a friend is not easy, for it means being chosen to perform a labor of the heart. It also means being chosen to change and grow. Part of that maturing process inevitably involves pruning. In the Allegory of the Olive Tree, the Master of the Vineyard labors to save the tree He loves so dearly, loving it too much to let it perish on its own.
Narrator (Elijah Orr):
“And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive-tree began to decay; and he said: [Master of the Vineyard examines the tree while this is said. Inspects the leaves, roots, fruit.]
Master of the Vineyard (Brayden Bailey): [costume: Biblical head scarf and robe]
“I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not.”
Narrator (Elijah Orr):
Pruning removes branches, telling the tree that in order to survive it must send greater strength into the remaining branches. Thus pruning ensures the salvation and enlargement of the fruit. Elder Hugh B. Brown once told a story about his own experience with pruning:
Hugh B. Brown (Jens Jorgensen): [costume: overalls, plaid shirt, straw hat]
“Sixty-odd years ago I was on a farm in Canada. I had purchased the farm from another who had been somewhat careless in keeping it up. I went out one morning and found a currant bush that was at least six feet high. I knew that it was going all to wood. There was no sign of blossom or of fruit. So I got my pruning shears and went to work on that currant bush. [Prunes tree, then stands back and looks at it.]
As I looked at this little clump of stumps, there seemed to be a tear on each one, and I said, [Turns to the tree.] ‘What’s the matter, currant bush?’
[Turns to face audience.] “And I thought I heard that currant bush speak. It seemed to say,
Tree (Andrew Hu):
[Voice from behind tree.] ‘How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as large as the fruit tree and the shade tree, and now you have cut me down. How could you do it? I thought you were the gardener here.’
Hugh B. Brown (Jens Jorgensen):
[Talking to tree, tenderly] ‘Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you will never amount to anything. But someday, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to think back and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.’’”
Narrator (Nicole Curzon):
Being God’s chosen means He loves us enough to prune and refine us. In Isaiah chapter 48 we read, “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.”
Narrator (Max or Christopher):
In The Chosen, Danny and Reuven’s relationship refines them. Indeed, before they are even friends, they find themselves pitted against one another in a tense baseball game. At a climactic moment, Danny pitches a fastball straight into Reuven’s eye. Reuven’s eyeglasses shatter, lodging a shard of glass into his eyeball and nearly blinding him. Afterwards, in the hospital Danny visits Reuven and they become fast friends. Upon returning home from the hospital, Reuven discovers that he has received the gift of perception. Everything he sees is full of light and glorious:
Reuven (John Burton): [costume: dress sweater, collared shirt, glasses, yarmulke; backlighting makes the tree glow.]
“In front of each house was a tiny lawn planted with either morning glories or a hydrangea bush. The hydrangea bush--or snowball bush, as we called it--on our lawn glowed in the sunlight, and I stared at it. I had never really paid any attention to it before. Now it seemed suddenly luminous and alive.”
Narrator (Paige McNamara):
Ironically, it is by nearly losing his eye that Reuven gains the gift of sight, and through the process the one who is responsible becomes his truest friend. Through our trials, we too can gain eyes to see our blessings.
Song: “Blessings” by Laura Story
Sung by Angela Gerlach & Alex Hill
Accompanied by Emma Todd
Narrator (Madison Johnson):
Even though we may know that our trials are blessings, at times we may feel completely and utterly alone, and we may wonder where God is and why He seems to have abandoned us. Reuven is chosen to be Danny’s friend to help him through the hardest part of his youth: Danny’s father raises him in silence. They don’t talk. Not at all. Oh yes, they will talk when they study the scriptures, but aside from that Danny’s father simply doesn’t communicate with him. Through the years, Reuven comes to resent Danny’s father. As he watches Danny’s emotional and spiritual turmoil, he wonders how Danny’s father can be so cruel.
Narrator (Megan Holmes):
Finally, at the end of the novel, Reuven finds himself seated across from Reb Saunders as the man explains why he has raised his son in silence.
Reb Saunders (Benjamin Bushman): [costume: dark suit, prayer shawl, kolpic (fur hat)]
“Reuven, I want you to listen carefully to what I will tell you now. You will not understand it. You may never understand it. And you may never stop hating me for what I have done. I know how you feel.
Narrator (Megan Holmes):
As his explanation unfolds, we see a man racked by fear of losing his son because he was born with a mind, an intellect like no other and yet also with a heart bereft of empathy. We get a sense of just how much it has cost Reb Saunders to stand by and watch his son Danny suffer and know that he is the cause of his son’s suffering and yet to do it anyway. Reb’s body trembles and tears spill from his eyes as he explains:
Reb Saunders (Benjamin Bushman):
Ah, what a price to pay….The years when he was a child and I loved him and talked with him and held him under my tallis when I prayed...’Why do you cry, Father?’ he asked me once under the tallis. He could not understand. [Pauses, leans back and closes eyes, then gives a long, shuddering sigh.]
The heart speaks through silence. One learns of the pain of others by suffering one’s own pain, by turning inside oneself, by finding one’s own soul. And it is important to know of pain. It destroys our self-pride, our arrogance, our indifference toward others. It makes us aware of how frail and tiny we are and of how much we must depend upon the Master of the Universe.
Narrator (Sam Andersen):
Though the silence of the veil may at times make us feel that God has abandoned us, we know that we have a God who weeps. We have a God who loves us enough to watch us suffer when there is no other way.
Narrator (Alan Zhang):
And our Father is never truly silent. Even Reb Saunders talked to Danny through their time together in the scriptures, and he talked to Danny through his friend Reuven, and most of all, he knew that God would speak to Danny through the silence. Danny tried to explain to Reuven:
Danny (Danny Haymond): [costume: dark suit, yarmulke, earlocks]
“You can listen to silence, Reuven. I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it. ...You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture.”
Narrator (Bobby Zhou):
In silence, as in pruning, the Lord is the gardener. And yet, because of the Atonement we are not left to bear our sufferings alone. In every facet of the garden, Christ’s Atonement is evident. Consider again the olive tree.
[Slideshow with images: evergreen, ancient olive tree, olive oil, olive press, oil lamp, medical use, coronation, candelabra, tree of life, crucifixion, Gethsemane.]
Narrator (Charles Valverde):
The olive tree is an evergreen, like the Christmas tree, reminding us of eternal life. Indeed, olive trees do seem to be immortal as some olive trees living today have been documented to be over 2,000 years old.
Narrator (Parker Reyes):
Historically, the fruit of the olive tree has been important as food and also for its pure oil which is extracted by pressing.
This oil has been used as a source of fuel for warmth and light and as a medicinal ointment for healing.
Anciently, kings were anointed with olive oil as part of their selection and coronation.
Olive oil played a significant role in the temple worship of the House of Israel. For example, the candelabra was filled with olive oil and when burning was sometimes called a “tree of lights.”
Narrator (Josh Brown):
It should not surprise us that the New Testament refers to Christ as having borne our sins “on the tree” of the cross.
Nor should it surprise us that his great atoning sacrifice began in the Garden of Gethsemane, or place of the olive press.
Narrator (Alan Cui):
Luke chapter 22 reads, “And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. … And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed …. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
Narrator (Emma Todd):
The titles Messiah and Christ are the Hebrew and Greek words meaning “The Anointed One.” One translation of the title Messias is “to glow with light, as one glistens when anointed with olive oil.”
Messiah, Christ, the Lord of the Vineyard, the Gardener of Mankind.
Song: “The Man With Many Names” by Michael McLean & Bryce Neubert
Sung by Christopher Bowen
Narrator (Catherine Bigelow):
One of the greatest evidences of God’s love may be that he lets us suffer. For suffering is an essential part of mortality and a result of agency. God safeguards our agency, which inevitably means that we will sometimes cause ourselves pain and be hurt by others. The history of the twentieth century is filled with suffering caused by others. Few generations have endured or been asked to sacrifice as much as those who lived through World War II, and yet that generation has been remembered by history as the “Greatest Generation.”
Narrator (Gabriel Zhao):
During World War II, suffering was concentrated in the extermination camps of the Holocaust. This year we read the book, Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor. Frankl observed that even in the concentration camps where mankind was mired in depravity, agency was still paramount:
Concentration Camp Inmate 1 (Harrison Wade): [costume: rags/stripes]
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Concentration Camp Inmate 2 (Adelaide Walker):[costume: rags/stripes]
“Dostoevski said once, ‘There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.’ These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom--which cannot be taken away--that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”
Concentration Camp Inmate 3 (Grant Rutherford): [costume: rags/stripes]
“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”
Narrator (Hannah Weyland):
On one occasion, Frankl witnessed the death of a young woman in a concentration camp: [Girl is in bed, looking at the tree.]
Frankl (Benjamin McMillan): [costume: prison stripe or rags, stethoscope, clipboard]
“This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge.
Girl (Kimberly Brown): [costume: plain nightgown]
‘I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard. In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously.’ (Pointing through the window of the hut) ‘This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness.’
Frankl (Benjamin McMillan):
Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms.
Girl (Kimberly Brown):
‘I often talk to this tree.’
Frankl (Benjamin McMillan):
I was startled and didn’t quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? did she have occasional hallucinations? [Turning to address the girl.] Did the tree reply?
Girl (Kimberly Brown):
Yes.
Frankl (Benjamin McMillan):
What did it say to you?
Girl (Kimberly Brown):
“It said to me, ‘I am here--I am here--I am life, eternal life.’”
Narrator (Hannah Weyland): We too know what it means to be worthy of our suffering.
Sarah Curzon:
“As Viktor Frankl said, suffering was something we needed to be worthy of. There were times in my life in Africa when I thought the sufferings were too hard to bear. Never once in Ghana did I think that someday my suffering would be worth it. When I came to America, my parents helped me to confront all the pains and sufferings I had shut off in my heart and which I had pretended weren’t there. And as I was confronting those pains, I suffered again, but this suffering didn’t make me shut down or go numb; it helped me open up my heart and feel love. I never thought I would say this, but I wouldn’t trade my suffering for anything. My sufferings and pains have made me who I am today. They have made me a stronger person and more sensitive to other people’s suffering.
“This book has also helped me understand the atonement of Jesus Christ on a different level. The Savior himself has gone through all the pains that we are going through. I know he has felt the pains of my heart and the suffering of my soul.”
Max or Christopher on personal experiences of suffering.
Song: Theme from Schindler’s List by John Williams
Cello: Sam Anderson, Adelaide Walker
Viola: Eliza Dalton
Violin: Nicole Curzon
Narrator (Josh Higgins):
We did not live through the concentration camps or World War II, but we are no less a chosen generation. We are waging a spiritual war described by C.S. Lewis in his book The Screwtape Letters. In this book, Screwtape, a senior devil, advises his nephew Wormwood who has just been assigned his first “patient.” Screwtape knew that it is not military wars that really matter; rather it is the day-to-day wars in our hearts and minds that count. In response to Screwtape’s letters, we have composed our own Angel Letters, written by our imagined guardian angels as they support us in this war.
[In the following vignettes, when devils appear on stage, before they start speaking, Alan Z. will play a riff from “Cruella De Vil,” “Pink Panther,”and/or “Jaws” on the saxophone. When angels appear, Nicole Curzon will play a trill on a lute/harp. Angels will be costumed in white robes. Adelaide will hold a halo above the angels. Devils will have red horns and pitchforks.]
Devil 1 (Alex Hill):
My Dear Wormwood,
The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.
Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation? The repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life--his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down.
I have always found that the Trough periods provide excellent opportunity for all temptations. The attack has a much better chance of success when the man's whole inner world is drab and cold and empty.
Angel 1 (Devynn Burnham):
Dear Celeste,
I am so pleased you have been called to serve such a sweet sister. Although her memories of her life before birth have been veiled, she was one of our Father’s most noble and kind. Right now she needs your loving support. As you know, our Father relies on troughs more than on the peaks, and the enemy knows this too. When she is in her troughs and is praying and not getting an answer she recognizes, she starts to be tempted to listen to the enemy more. Guide her to scriptures and to continue in faithful prayer. Answers will come.
Help her know that troughs are blessings because they are learning experiences that help her grow. Also help her come to recognize that our Lord knows what she is going through because He has gone through it. He won’t always take away her troughs, but He will help strengthen her through them. Our sister wants to become like Him, and that’s what He wants too. When she is having a bad day, help her to think outwardly towards others. Giving love with open hands is the surest way to receive it!
Devil 2 (Mitchell Breese):
My Dear Wormwood,
Obviously you are making excellent progress. My only fear is lest in attempting to hurry the patient you awaken her to a sense of her real position. As long as she retains externally the habits of a Christian she can still be made to think of herself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same as it was six weeks ago. And while she thinks that, we do not have to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognised, sin, but only with her vague, though uneasy, feeling that she hasn't been doing very well lately.
As this condition becomes more fully established, you will be gradually freed from the tiresome business of providing Pleasures as temptations. You will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract her wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which she really likes, to keep him from her prayers or her work or her sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday's paper will do. You can make her do nothing at all for long periods. And Nothing is very strong.
Angel 2 (Sierra Klingler):
Dear Charity,
Thank you so much for your help and advice. This angel business is becoming quite fun! Our sister has been progressing so much. I am so proud of her! I can’t wait till she marries in the temple. Then I can come down and get a body and progress like she has. Oh, what an experience that will be.
Screwtape loves to encourage people to waste their time doing “nothing” for long periods of time. One of Screwtape’s greatest tools is “nothing.” It stops progression and wastes time, even lifetimes. As our sister continues to watch movies they will become less pleasurable for her because after the movie is over she will have to face her reality. After watching the movie she will be likely to wish that she didn’t have homework and would rather go back to her own world in her movies. When she has this mindset, she will not enjoy her life to the full extent that she could have.
Devil 3 (Stephen Brockbank):
My Dear Wormwood,
The Enemy is a hedonist at heart. He makes no secret of it. Ugh! He's vulgar, Wormwood. He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least—sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it's any use to us.
For example, music and silence—how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end.
Angel 3 (Arianne Van Der Watt):
Dear Serenity,
Many types of music bring our sister closer to our Father and invite the Spirit to be present. Our fallen brother would have her always listening to so-called “music” which just brings noise into her life and chases away the Spirit. However, true music can calm her down and help her relax.
Silence can also be a powerful influence, and in fact our sister may need more of it in her life. When she is surrounded by everyday noises it can be hard to feel peace and hear the Holy Ghost. In the busyness of everyday life, she gets little to no pure silence. When she is able to be in complete silence, she can think and pray about questions and receive the answers she seeks.
Devil 4 (Caleb Lee):
My Dear Wormwood,
The obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. When He talks of their losing their selves, He only means abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.
One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His.
[Enter two devil secret police (David Cowley and Charles Valverde), wearing dark sunglasses and suits, each takes him by one arm hooked under his and drags him off backwards and screaming.]
Uh, wait. Did I say He loves them? That’s not what I meant. I am not a heretic! You miserable little... Let me go!
Narrator (Josh Jorgensen):
He does really love us. That is the great truth. And that is why history is not just His Story, but also Our Story. In the Allegory of the Olive Tree, when the Lord of the Vineyard is preparing for the final gathering and burning of His vineyard, He chooses laborers to work with Him. We have been chosen to labor with Him to gather in His family tree.
Whole Class Recitation:
And it came to pass that the servants did go and labor with their mights; and the Lord of the vineyard labored also with them; and they did obey the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard in all things...and the Lord of the vineyard preserved unto himself the natural fruit, which was most precious unto him from the beginning.
Song: “The Olive Tree” by Don Curtis and Kurt Bestor
Accompanied by Emma Todd
Sung by Sierra Klinger, Megan Holmes, Nicole Curzon, Adelaide Walker
Closing Prayer: Eliza Dalton
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