Spring Awakening

  On my phone I have a list of different Broadway plays that I want to see. I think to date I've seen somewhere around 25, but this past weekend I was able to see one that has been on my bucket list for a while, Spring Awakening.
  For those who are not aware, Spring Awakening is actually an American adaptation of a German Play entitled the Awakening of Spring written in 1891. What I find so remarkable about this particular play is that it focuses on all the taboo topics that could not be discussed during that particular time period - sex, abortion, child rape, incest, suicide, homosexuality, etc. And you know what? All those same things we feel uncomfortable talking about in any detail still today, over 100 years later. Wedekind's premise in the play seems to be that by not talking about these topics and others, for fear of them not understanding or being too young, we are actually causing them more harm.
  However, I was unaware that this particular production of Spring Awakening was extra special. While in line, I noticed a woman off to my right video chatting with someone through ASL. When I was seated inside, a special insert in the program explained that this limited 18 week production of Spring Awakening was being done in both spoken English and ASL. And it was phenomenal. Additionally, one of the women performed from a wheelchair.
  The entire production hit home something that I had been struggling with for the last few weeks in Bible Study - the assumption that some Christians present that anyone who is differently-abled needs to be healed. Or should want to be healed. I am firmly not in that camp, so much so that sometimes the discussion around healing can make me uncomfortable, with the underlying assumption that people need to be healed in order to be used by God. Yet, here was an entire production strongly making the point that healing is subjective.
   I'm sure the all spoken/ sung English production of Spring Awakening, which closed in 2009, was good. But this production was amazing. Not only in its discussion of taboo topics, but it made each person attending face their underlying assumptions about sexuality, sex-education, and what it means to be a sexual being.
  For me, I also kept thinking about the quote from ABCFamily's show Switched at Birth a few weeks ago. One of the actors shared with one of the actresses, who was date-raped, that he too had been sexually assaulted as a child by a family friend who assumed because he was deaf he wouldn't tell anyone. We live in a world that seems to unfairly equate being differently-abled with being weak or being someone else's to abuse, or sometimes even begin un-sexual so sexuality does not need to be discussed. But shame on us. Because being differently-abled does not mean being of lesser worth.
   I also, kept thinking about a statistic that was released in the county I was serving back in 2011. The statistic was about an uptick in STIs present in elementary school students. Let that sink in for a moment - elementary school students. Let that sink in for a moment. Either we are holding sex ed off for so long in school that by the time we get around to it, kids are already experimenting without filly knowing what it is, or kids are being assaulted and don't know that its wrong or who to tell. Either way, shame on us for that as well.
   Seminary professor, Kate Ott, wrote a book about how to speak to your children from birth to adolescents about sex and sexuality. While I don't agree with everything in the book, I think the premise is correct. We need to start to figure out a way to talk to our kids about the tough things. So that they are protected - because not talking is certainly not working. There seems to be this misnomer that if we discuss things like healthy sex lives, mental health, and being pro life AND pro choice, that we will cause an epidemic of kids trying new things. I'm more afraid that not talking to kid will cause more experimentation then actually talking in age level appropriate discussions.
   We have some really hard conversations that we need to undertake as a society - some around tough  topics, that aren't going away any time soon, as an adaptation of a play from 1891 teaches us, and what it means and what it doesn't mean to be differently abled or abled bodied which this particular production brought out.