Photo by Ben Becker

By Joanne Moon

The first time I watched a musical as an adult, I was on a date in disguise – the kind where you don’t know you are on one and the other person counts on your naivete to take you on it.

At a whoppin’ eighteen years old, I was at a theatre I don’t recall now, watching the stories of these people with references I didn’t fully understand but their singing, the movements, the tension and its release in the air captured my attention.
I was entranced and yet I didn’t fully understand. Then the curtains drew to a close, and now I was really confused. The story seemed to come to an abrupt end without climax or resolve. But I guess that’s how musicals go? I must have some growing up to do? As I got up to leave the theatre with more questions than understanding, the person I came with asked quizzically, “Um, where you going?” I said, “I guess the bathroom and then we can head out.” He said to me incredulously, “It’s not over yet. It’s the intermission.” A wave of understanding swept over me, almost eclipsing my embarrassment. It all made so much sense. I still wasn’t certain how the story would begin to make sense, but I had a faith that if I waited around, more would come.

Twenty years later, I am coming out of the intermission of the drama of my own life. An inquisitive, daydreaming and clumsy girl with an artist soul falls in love with the church, philosophizes over lunches, hops on a plane to go cross-country to become a master of all things divine and witnesses people suffering, cursing, drinking and dying with secrets. Preaching day and night and day and night, in English, in Korean, in broken Spanish, in song and sighs, she watches the morning dawn and drives through the dark to hold hands in hospitals, coffee shops, parking lots and jails.

Then suddenly the curtains draw. The drama seems to come to a solemn end. From the seats, nothing is seen. From behind the curtains, no sound is heard.

But we can be sure, beyond the curtains, despite the silence, there is a different kind of a drama unfolding during the intermission – away from the lights and glitz and captive attention of others. Perhaps a gulp of water or sinking deep into a seat, a quick shedding of one weighty costume for the lightness of another and a last stretch to leap buoyantly into that grand second half of the drama where conflicts peak, voices will rise and climax to bring such surprising, deep and meaningful resolution to it all.

My very own first half of the story ended with grim news. Autism. Autism, again. My two beautiful boys with luminous eyes and bright smiles began taking over my morning dawns and deep of the night with inconsolable night terrors and the repetitions – oh the repetitions. I traded my inquisitiveness, daydreaming and clumsy for research upon research; all my love and brainpower and traveling to become a master of all things therapy and recovery.

But behind the curtains, another very important drama unfolds. Did the show end – a naïve bystander may wonder. But no. There is more, says someone who has been around the block. This is intermission and just wait around because all your questions and loose ends will come together in a song.

And there during my own intermission of life, I was preparing to sing a song, prophetic and true, waiting to give meaning to all the moments, lived and coming – From Rent, the Musical:

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life
How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
Measure in love
Seasons of love
Seasons of love

Shrouded by weighty, velvety cloak of separation – protection, I dare say – God filled my emptied cup with living water, night after night, tear after tear. God held me sinking deep into him with vulnerability and fear no one else can hold, and showed me that he keeps company with me amidst the ashes – he is the beauty for my ashes.

From the eyes of onlookers, my life’s story seemed to come to an unfortunate halt. What would become of her calling? What a waste of gifts and ministry to be had.

But it is in the intermission of my own drama that God’s love became penetratingly clear, threading all the disparate potentials and promises of my past into something worth telling, which is to say, if all my dreams, all my talents, all my hard work and all my goodness came to nothing, the love of God still keeps company with me, giving all the meaning I need to my very own existence. I was learning to measure my life in Love. Every season, even that season, was a season of Love.

Because God is love, and nothing can separate us from God’s love, and for those who have faith as meager as mustard seeds to believe that he is, Jesus is the author and the perfecter of our faith. He was in every season, and he is the measure of my lot. So let the curtains drawback – here comes the second half.

Joanne Moon is a wholehearted wife and mom who is prayerfully and playfully engaging the world through conversation with God and people. She is in deep study of soul care, spiritual formation and spiritual theology with the Church and the world in mind. She loves to write, take pictures and tell a story. She loves to look you deep in your soul and listen to yours, too. Together with her husband and three children, they are navigating the adventure that autism brings with God’s enduring companionship and the support of family and friends.