Day 9 - One Day More

The 26th of February is a bit of a special day for me. I didn’t know it was special, however, until I started researching for this article. But why, I hear you ask? Well, 26th February is the day when Victor Hugo was born.

Now I hope Hugo’s name is not too obscure to most people, but for those who aren’t brushed up on their French literature, Hugo is the author of works such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and of course, the infamous Les Misérables.

Now some of you may know that at the end of January, I was in a week-long show run of Les Mis at school, playing the character of Enjolras (no, I have no clue how to say it properly either). As the leader of the revolution, there was a lot of singing and standing on barricades pistol in hand (resulting in some marvellous stage photos), but it got me thinking. We rehearsed Les Mis for 6 hours every Monday for 6 months. In the weeks leading up to show, I was at school at least once everyday for 21 days. Our total rehearsal time is somewhere in the 100s of hours and to say it dominated our lives would be something of an understatement. And yet, as soon as show week started it was all over. Gone in a blink of an eye and a rush of adrenaline, terror and pure joy. It felt the house lights had barely gone down on opening night when we were doing our final encore rendition of ‘One Day More’ on closing night.

And it made me think of Easter a little bit. What with Lent, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, there are lots of events that our churches need to be getting ready for, all for a few hours of services. Lots of work, stress, preparation and planning – making sure all our traditions are carried out, making sure everything is publicised properly - all for it to be over in the blink of an eye.

But we still do it, don’t we? There’s never any question in our churches to the tune of ‘do we have to do Easter this year?’.

That feeling was very much the same in rehearsals. It’s a 2-and-a-half-hour musical and it feels like it! Running around under stage lights in period costume, singing and acting all at the same time, being constantly aware of where you and everyone else is as the staging moves and the scenes shift. And yet, there was never anyone seriously asking if this scene was necessary or if that staging change really added.

Because that’s just what we do, isn’t it, for things we love? We knuckle down and crack on and then at the end of it, we sit back satisfied with a job well done.

So this Lent, this Easter, enjoy all the planning and the organising. If it's you that does it in your church, take some time for yourself. If it's not you, support those who it is in anyway they may need it. And most of all, enjoy it – it's a good one.

Harry Booton