If I should stay I would only be in your way.
The play opens with this banger from Whitney Houston, the character singing is God and he’s singing this song to the main character, a teenager at summer camp.
Before going further, “God” is a metaphor, for your higher power, however you experience your higher power. For this post, I will stick with ‘God’ to reflect the language of the play. The play is called La Llamada and it’s playing at Repertorio NYC.
Getting back to the opener, I love art. I love how art that’s been around for decades can still be spun in a different way, bringing out a whole new flavor. Spinning “I Will Always Love You” as religious? Stunning!
I’m not going to linger on that, because in that moment, the meaning of the song spun even further for me. I experienced my core self singing “I Will Always Love You” to all my parts. Over the years, my parts needed to hide my core self to survive. But my core self let me know through this song that she isn’t bitter about this situation at all. My core self understands why my parts did what what they did. And she sings that she’s always been there for me, in each of those difficult moments, and she always will be.
The play tells the story of a teenager who sees god appearing to her, singing Whitney Houston songs. And the teenager doesn’t know what to do, so she asks for help from a nun. The nun tries to help, teaching her a prayer to pray next time God sings to her. So the next time God appears to the main character, she tries praying as she was taught. But God laughs in her face. The prayer doesn’t work! After talking this over with the nun, the nun suggests singing back to God the song that the teenager wrote. And of course this works much better.
This is the calling. What we have, the very best we can, what we delight in. To bring it to the world, to ourselves, to god (again, as we understand god).
Mile by mile, go your own way
The finale ends with God singing Whitney Houston’s “Step by Step” to the main character. This performance reminding me of all my missteps. I’ve misstepped by hiding my core self, I’ve misstepped when my skills don’t match up with the grandness of my vision. But I’m moving forward, I’m not stopping, I’m still finding it, step by step.