Enough, Tinkerbell, Enough

 

When I was a college theatre major, I performed a monologue from Christopher Durang’s “'Denity Crisis” in my acting class.

Back then, as I memorized and performed it, the struggle with grace didn’t quite click for me.

But, years later, I see how the playwright’s humorous account of a Peter Plan play, indeed, captures the spiritual wrestling match grace versus effort embodies.

 “...You remember how in the second act Tinkerbell drinks some poison that Peter's about to drink, in order to save him? And then Peter turns to the audience and he says that Tinkerbell's going to die because not enough people believe in fairies, but that if everybody in the audience claps real hard to show that they do believe in fairies, then maybe Tinkerbell won't die…. and so then all the children started to clap…. we clapped very hard and very long…. my palms hurt and even started to bleed I clapped so hard…. then suddenly the actress playing Peter Pan turned to the audience and she said, ‘that wasn't enough. You didn't clap hard enough. Tinkerbell's dead.’  uh..well, and..and then everyone started to cry. The actress stalked offstage and refused to continue with the play, and they finally had to bring down the curtain. No one could see anything through all the tears, and the ushers had to come help the children up the aisles and out into the street. I don't think I was ever the same after that.”

 

How many of us can echo that last sentence in our own lives?

“I don't think I was ever the same after that.”

Indeed, the question centered on one word: enough.

Enough is enough.

No matter what I did or did not do- concerning anything- it seemed it was not enough.

Life, inevitably, deals us some trauma, pain or negative experience which reinforces how, indeed, we did not clap hard enough.

Perhaps our marriage failed...

Perhaps someone died...

Perhaps we lost our career, our financial stability or our reputation...

So now, our personal Tinkerbell, because of imperfect life, is dead.

This business of earning grace, love and worth can wreak havoc. It drives many of us, in some attempt to self-soothe, to reach for our pet addiction. We reason no matter what we do or do not do in life, it’s not “enough.” That places us in paralysis.

We ask, “What’s the point?”

We come from a survival place of just getting through this wretched thing called life. We believe the best we can hope for is, while paralyzed, is to numb and comfort ourselves with our beloved addiction.

So, we throw away grace. We even accept doom.

That’s a challenging thing to wrap our finite minds around. Let’s face it- we live in a cause and effect world. Logically, if we do “A,” then we should get “B.”

It drives us bonkers. For we want to be in control.

We call it multi-tasking, being goal- oriented or doing some trouble shooting.

“‘that wasn't enough. You didn't clap hard enough. Tinkerbell's dead.’”

Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse