What if…?

Marvel at the story in the posture of those hands.

I've always loved that song by Joan Osborn's song, What if God Was One of Us? [even though there is a horrid grammatical fault in that title].) What if there is karma, or God or some such moral force at work in the universe? What if that were true?

 PAL Vancouver is a residence for retired performing arts professionals needing housing assistance. A bunch of compassionate members of the performing arts community united to build it and when the thoroughly delightful Richard Thomas of The Waltons offered to perform his one-man show as a PAL fundraiser, PAL needed a volunteer producer so I stepped in.

There followed: A huge benefit show, a dance party to celebrate the completion of the shell of the building during construction, and then a series of four dinners featuring "star" guest performers. After that I decided to walk 1,200 kilometres and asked my friends to sponsor me. The walk netted $17,000 for PAL and brought my total funds raised for them to just under ninety grand.

That had me decide to bring my total to an even hundred grand. PAL has a theatre, so I though I should use it to raise funds and bring people into the building. But to do what? It was my dear friend Dwight who pushed me to tell my life story so I produced Knock Knock—a play about my life. It cost me 20 grand to produce but I gave PAL 100% of the box office and reached the hundred grand total.

I was the ideal board member I set out to be. Having had board members as bosses much of my professional life, I decided to live the role for PAL that I had always wanted from my own board members.

And what happens when it is all over? That script earned me Warren, a writing partner. And he got me to turn Knock Knock into a screenplay that gets optioned to become a movie. Then Presentation House invites me to write and perform a show (Trudeau) there. And then hero/mentor, Bill Millerd at the Arts Club invites me to submit (the re-written) Knock Knock script to them.

Has risk merely been appropriately rewarded. Or is there a moral force at work in the universe? Why not believe there is a loving, compassionate, God. Who gets hurt if you do?