This Lenten season, my church (Christ Church NYC United Methodist) has been partnering with Immigration Law and Justice of New York for a study called “Overcoming Fear Of The Other” where we’ve been using Bishop William Willimon’s book “Fear Of The Other” and Karen Gonzalez’s book “Beyond Welcome” as primary texts in studying “the other” framed in light of Christ’s ministry. We’ve talked about how people, especially immigrants, are put in the category of “other” and how that affects their treatment, especially during the political landscape we find ourselves in. It’s been a lot of good, thought-provoking discussions, and reading the books has opened up a new lens of looking at people and situations.
Last night, we were supposed to go to a community meal and Lenten service at our campus in Washington Heights. The service was a joint service with the Hispanic UMC congregations in the NYC area. I’d been really excited to go to it.
On Monday, I entered the ticket lottery for “Real Women Have Curves”, the new musical based on Josefina Lopez’s play and her HBO screenplay co-written with George LaVoo by the same name. I didn’t know a lot about the story besides having heard the title before – and I’d heard snippets of the music on Instagram, so I was really excited when I won a ticket in the lottery. (For those not familiar, it’s not a free ticket – just a severely discounted one. Sometimes they are “partial view” seats, but unless you get one of the behind the pole seats at “Hell’s Kitchen” they’re usually not bad.) For the majority of shows on Broadway that have lotteries, you enter the day before – so for entries on a Monday, it’s almost always for Tuesday night’s performance. I didn’t fully pay attention to the date, so when I got an email on Tuesday morning that was “in preparation for your show tomorrow night” I was confused. Until I looked at my e-ticket in my digital wallet.
Nope. It was for Wednesday night.
Which meant I needed to decide if I wanted to waste the ticket and go to the meal and service or use the ticket and skip the meal and service. While the lottery tickets are not that expensive, they are still money. And since I’m working on being better with my money, I decided to attend the show and sent my apologies to the pastor at our Washington Heights campus.
Well, I didn’t know walking into the show last night how it would dovetail so perfectly with the Lenten study it felt right that I was there. (Yes, if you’re familiar with the original play or the HBO movie, you are probably rolling your eyes and saying “Duh”, but remember I only knew the title – I’d never seen either before.) One of the underlying stories is immigration and undocumented persons – people who are very much “other”. A second is Ana’s struggle to reconcile her dreams and goals with the expectations placed on her by her family as she is the only American citizen in the family – so there’s a personal “othering” happening there as well.
There is joy woven throughout, even through the sad moments. One of the most joyful moments is during the titular song when the women – most of whom DO have curves – strip to their underwear in celebration of themselves, their bodies, and their lives. It’s in no way sexual or prurient. It’s full of self-acceptance from all the othering they face.
I am sorry that I missed the community meal and service, but attending “Real Women Have Curves” felt like an appropriate extension of the study we’ve been doing. Sometimes things that seem unrelated really end up being more related than we’d ever think.
And I know I can’t wait to go back to “Real Women Have Curves”. It’s worth it on so many levels.
even miracles take a little time 