You Just Don't Know You Know (a short Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

You know her. You just don't know you know her.

She was born in 1919. As a young woman, during the 1940's and 1950's, she and her husband, Gower Champion, performed in several films for MGM (including a remake of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film, Roberta). But that's not why I'm convinced you know her. And it's not because the two of them starred as dancer and choreographer, respectively, in a 1957 TV sitcom. As it turns out, she lived a very long life. She only died a few years ago. It's possible you may have known about some of her late-in-life work (The Awakening Land, Fame).

But they're not why I'm convinced you know her.

Before she was Marge Champion, all grown up and married, she was a teenager named Margie Belcher.

And quite a good dancer.

In the mid-1930's, Walt Disney hired young Margie to come to his studio and dance for his animators. When questioned about how watching her dance helped them complete the cartoon they were working on, Disney reportedly declared, quite forcefully, "We are not making a cartoon! We are making art." What they were making was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." And if you've seen it, you've seen Margie Belcher: when Snow White walks, when she sits or stands, when she dances, that's Margie.

Margie was the motion model for Snow White.

Knowing this story changes how we see that animated film, the very first of its kind. No one had every made a full length animated film before it, and even in the short cartoons of the day, no one had gone to such lengths to ensure the animated characters moved like real people.

Life is like this. We spend our days seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. We use our senses to help us understand our experiences. And, most of the time, that's the whole of it. But every once in a while, someone reveals something to us that changes how we think about what our senses have communicated to us.

From now on, whenever you see Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," or even just a clip of Snow White doing something, you will recall that a teenage girl named Margie, a real girl, is behind every move.

Having such revelations change how we think about things.

That is what is meant by this week's Lectionary selection from Psalm 19:7-14. And that is why we read the Bible.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Proper 21 (26) (September 27, 2015)
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Psalm 124
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Psalm 19:7-14
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50
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Friday is almost here. It gets here pretty quickly. I hope you can join us for Lectionary Breakfast. We still gather at 8:00 a.m. at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for an hour of revelation, tasty food, and, a staple, laughter.

No one will be asked to model.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

The End of the Story (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

A while back, a young man got very excited about something he believed would revolutionize the work he did. That's not unusual, especially for young people. In this case, the "something" was a new level of computer animation. This young animator was so excited about this new animation idea he pitched it to his manager as something the company should do.

He was fired.

The reason? His boss told him it was because he was “screwing around with crazy ideas instead of doing his job.” End of story. Or so we might assume.

But IS that really the end of the story? People get fired every day, sometimes justly and sometimes otherwise. For the person freshly terminated from the working world, it certainly FEELS like it's the end. Still, as those of us who have been around a while have learned, what seems like the end of a person's story is really the beginning of another chapter.

In the case of our young animator, though disappointed in his company's response to his recommendation for change, he was not done. He went looking for more receptive ears . . . and he found them.

In the person of Steve Jobs.

Soon, he was at the center of that revolution in animation. And before long, he was a producer with such hits under his belt as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. They say that one man's trash is another man's treasure. In this case, it was Disney's trash that became Pixar's treasure.

But even THAT isn't the end of the story. When Disney later acquired Pixar, that former employee returned to Disney and became head of Disney’s animation.

In this week's Lectionary selections, we get to see a couple chapters in the story of King Saul and (future King) David. There were some dark times; scary situations with adversaries, rejection by the King. There were even worse times ahead, but God's story for David had many more chapters to go. Still, despite how bad things got, David maintained his confidence in God. And, as we are privileged to know since we can read David's entire story in scripture, God honored David's faith.

Our lives come in seasons and our stories are told in chapters. Be patient. Allow the time for God's plan to unfold. You never know what is just around the corner.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/
Proper 7 (12) (June 21, 2015)

1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49
Psalm 9:9-20
or
1 Samuel 17:57-18:5, 18:10-16
Psalm 133
Job 38:1-11
Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
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We have such a nice time each Friday morning at our Lectionary Breakfast gathering. If you're in the area, join us for a great start to your weekend. The food is tasty and the fellowship cannot be matched. We still meet at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant, corner of New Road and Franklin, in the center near Outback.

Enjoy the week!
Steve