The Giver

Tonight I had the pleasure of going to a play with my good friend Taran. The play was an adaptation of a Newberry Award-winning book called The Giver. As adaptations from books go, this was a pretty good one, I thought. The design of the set was a powerful tool in conveying the feel of the world in which the story took place. I had only a few complaints about the technical aspects of the show. And the acting was very well-done. The woman who played 'the Giver' in particular was an excellent actress who was truly convincing in her part. I found myself drawn to the brink of tears more than once for her efforts, and there was no shortage of sniffles to be heard around the house.

For any who are unfamiliar with The Giver, it is a story set in a Utopian Society, far in the future. It's a world without danger, pain, anger, or even rudeness. There's no injury, beyond an occasional scraped knee, no violence, no selfishness, no hunger, and no natural disasters (due to climate control technology). There's also no passion, no music, no color, no heat or cold, no love. No conscience, no individuality, no strength or courage (there's no need for them) and above all, no choice. Not because those in authority openly force the people to obey, but because they've lived in this perfectly calculated and contained way for so long, no one remembers a time when there were choices. Except the Receiver (the Receiver becomes the Giver when the next Receiver is chosen and the memories of all the past generations are passed on to them). The Giver and Receiver alone are able to comprehend a world where mates, children to look after, and jobs are not chosen for a person. They alone know what a sunrise looks like, or what riding a horse feels like. Only they can see color or hear music. At the same time, they're the only two who know what starvation, injury, warfare, heartbreak, and death feel like. Thus the rest of the community around them is able to stay ignorant and safe and content.

Watching the story unfold in this setting made it very easy to imagine a world in which an alternative plan would have been chosen. Specifically the plan proposed by Lucifer. It would have been a much safer plan, to be sure. Not one soul would be lost. It would have been so easy to justify. As Jonas (the new Receiver) begins to test the bounds of everything he's been taught, he asks: "What if we could choose our own mates?" But then, he just as quickly steps back from the notion, realizing his mistake: "Oh... But what if we choose wrong?" What if, indeed...

It's easy to see the correlation in this fictional world between safety and ignorance. No one ever imagines there could be more to the world than the tiny function they have been taught to carry out as part of the society. They have no knowledge of anything else. Where would they have gained it? Knowledge comes with the experience of choosing. Sometimes we -do- make the wrong decision. But whether our choice is right or wrong, there is always some new knowledge gleaned by experiencing it.

"Why can't we have colors?" Jonas asked. "Why can't I wake up in the morning and choose to put on a red tunic or a blue one? The choice wouldn't really matter.... It's the choosing that matters." Jonas was exactly right. It is the choosing that matters. The ability to choose who to marry, what to do, where to go, how to feel, what to eat, what to wear... Just think of what Christ was willing to do in order to give us those choices! How very much it matters! Ours is a Plan of Happiness. And there was no happiness in that other plan. Only shades of gray.

How grateful I feel that He's given me this world of colors to choose from. Living in a world of grays may have been a safer choice. But it was no choice at all. I could not imagine ever wanting to live in such a world. But then, if I -did- live there, I couldn't imagine very much at all, could I?


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Quote - "God loves you the way you are. But He loves you too much to leave you that way."
Music - "Love Story Meets Viva la Vida," Jon Schmidt
Mood - Gloriously alive!