St. Paul United Church of Christ

In seminary we were taught to pretty much disregard words like the ones that begin this passage, “The end of all things is near.” “Early Christians,” we were told, “expected the Second Coming of Christ and the end of history to happen very soon. But we know that didn’t happen.”

When your computer begins to run a bit slow and you get a pop-up window notifying you of an upgrade and asking if you want to download it now, do you think to yourself, ‘I don’t have time today. I’ll do it later” You put it off . . . and off . . . and off. Eventually your application grinds to a near halt. You now have no choice but to download the upgrade.

Improvisation is when you don’t have enough information to do anything but just take the next step. Actors say the secret to improvisation is to go only as far as you have to and not a step or second further. No justifications, explanations, exclamations. No ‘ahems’ or throat-clearings. Just one step forward.