One thing I have come to depend upon is Turner Classic Movies, and I subscribe to the monthly guide rather than going online for the programming. I like to show my support this way and receive that booklet each month so I can hold it in my hands and go through all the tidbits of information like Robert Osborne’s column as well as anticipating what is going to be offered for the month.

While often taking Hollywood to task for its manifold failures, even disservice to America in too many instances I am ever mindful of the genuine contribution films have made in serving the public. The films of the early 30s offered relief from the desperation following the depression, they were of enormous benefit to us during WWII, and the great musicals were the finest work of America’s poets. But it defies imagination to consider the enormous debt we owe Shakespeare and all he meant to the stage as well as literature.

If the theater is in the blood of some this was certainly true of my grandparents and mother. My maternal grandparents performed in a traveling Vaudevillian circus, grandad did a brief stint in silent film, and mom broke her leg, literally, falling off a stage while dancing in a chorus line. When it came to theatrical it occurred to me years ago that my grandparents’ small church in Little Oklahoma allowed them an outlet for this need to continue performing for an audience; and while there was never any doubt my grandparents loved the Lord and were serving him the best way they knew how neither was there ever any doubt that the pulpit allowed grandad especially to find expression for his many gifts as a story-teller and performer.

No doubt it was in my genes to follow in the family tradition, not just in playing music and singing for audiences, but in the years I spent as a classroom teacher. The most successful teachers have the gift of being able to perform as you would expect on any stage.

Beyond the proper emphasis of preaching the Gospel, our small church was the means of satisfying the social needs as well of our small community of Dust Bowl folks. The spirited singing of those great old Pentecostal hymns to the accompaniment of my grandmother’s piano, the dynamic preaching of grandad, testimony time, prayer requests, the altar call at the end of the service, all these things were in a very real sense “theater.”

But throughout the Bible, both Old and New Testaments you will find just such theater, you will find the gifted performers like the prophets and evangelists holding forth before their audiences. Jesus captivated audiences by his gift of story-telling, and like the best of teachers he could hold the attention of his “pupils” while teaching the lesson.

The great prophets and preachers have been consummate actors, not in the pejorative sense of “hypocrite,” but in the best sense of the earliest poets, much like the holy men of my Cherokee ancestors who knew how to tell a story so the lesson would not be forgotten. Such was the work of the earliest poets, our earliest “historians.”

With the age of film story-telling took on a more memorable form, now the actors could reach audiences in numbers not possible in earlier times, and in a media format that had the advantage of moving pictures emphasizing the gifts and skills of the performers, the story-tellers of modern times, in many cases making books come alive in a way not possible with only the written words.

However, the Great White Way of Damon Runyon and others has not been threatened, and Broadway continues to beckon and pronounce between what is good theater and what is not, who is a gifted performer and who is not. As to the churches, what would they be without performers, those preachers able to captivate their audiences, their congregations? What are the great cathedrals with all their artistic appointments but invitations to the imagination conveying the aura of great theater? “The Godfather” holds a rightfully high place in the best of films made, but the hypocrisy notwithstanding what would it be without the theater of the Roman Church to give its imprimatur of authenticity and emphasis to the film?

Even in Protestantism there are found in some all the appointments of a Broadway play, of theater complete with actors in flowing robes and others costumed accordingly. But few are the Richard Burtons filling pulpits; and in too many cases all the trappings of the theater are there without the soul. Too often do those seen on TV especially seem more dedicated to the theatrical than the message, and lacking gifted actors with a soul for the story in too many cases such come off as poor theater as a consequence.

As I have pointed out in some other of my writing the real soul of America is to be found in its rural churches scattered throughout our nation, in those small congregations of simple folks of simple beliefs led of faithful shepherds not seeking the limelight. But even among the most humble of shepherds the requirement of “theater” remains a prerequisite of their holy office even as it was of my grandfather. And as some of you know, the best of performers easily overcome the deficiencies of lacking the “sets” of Broadway or Hollywood productions. Our small church in Little Oklahoma lacked many of the things like “proper” pews for the congregation. In the beginning the structure had a dirt floor and was wrapped in tarpaper, but with grandad’s preaching and my grandmother’s piano playing we had all that was required of good theater, theater with a soul.

But as with all theater, as with all story-telling worthy of being called such the storyline is that of good vs. evil. Now, if you are given a choice of watching The Godfather and Silence of the Lambs, or Gigi and My Fair Lady which would you choose? Well, it depends, doesn’t it. To be sure, there is this thing of what you are in the mood for, but there is no denying people find an attraction to evil, and we will always slow down to see a wreck on the highway.

However, given so much violence filling the world, with so many dangers threatening our nation and the rest of the world, don’t you kind of wish we could simply leave off all the dark messages, real as they are, and choose those things that lift our spirits and give us hope. This is where the best of theater found in the rural churches of America comes into its own.

This is not an attempt to minimize the importance of the great cathedrals where the best of the arts at one time flourished and gave such impetus to Western Civilization, to the inspiring influence of these grand palaces, these grand theaters. But even though I have experienced some of the great cathedrals of both Romanism and Protestantism, and some of the mega-churches, though some of you probably attend such places of worship there remains with me the memories of those small “theaters” like that of my grandparents. Here was community in the best sense of the word, here was theater in the best sense of the word. And it is something so far off Broadway it gets little in the way of reviews. But I feel compelled to continue giving it the reviews it both needs and deserves, though it hardly needs saying that it takes good people to make good churches, to make them good theater, the kind where all are included in fulfilling Shakespeare’s “The play’s the thing” where it is the sincerity of the players that catch the attention of the King, and that kind of sincerity cannot be “acted.”

The head of one of Hollywood’s largest theatrical agencies is reported to have told someone once he needed have a person only say the lines “I believe in God” and “I love you” to determine if they had real talent. It continues to perplex me so many seem to believe God is any easier taken in by those without talent than this man, that so many seem to believe anything less than a sincere heart can make the play the real thing.