Academy of Parish Clergy and Wit, an HBO theater presentation

I'm still here at Princeton for Academy of Parish Clergy. Saw the Princeton Battlefield -- Revolutionary War. We began our sessions today with Dr. Jack Stewart, emeritus professor of ministry and evangelism at Princeton, which focuses on the presence of the Gospel in unexpected places. I shall blog more on this later, but I wanted to comment on the evening presentation which was simply the playing of the DVD of the HBO version of the Broadway play "Wit," starring Emma Thompson.
I wasn't all that excited about seeing a play on film I'd never heard of, but as I began to watch this play about a John Donne scholar stricken with incurable ovarian cancer, a woman who has made her way in the world to the top of her field, and yet in the course of this move upward has isolated herself from essentially everyone.
It is a movie about life and death, about isolation and a sense of abandonment. And yet there are signs of presence -- call it divine if you wish or not -- I will call it divine presence. There is great sadness in this film, but there is also hope. Indeed, I was moved by the play, and the use of an image I shall not name lest I spoil the movie that is simple and yet profound.
It is something that in its own way, whether intended or not, that is a sign of the Spirit's presence.

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