Creating Culture-Start Where You Are

I've joined with other creatives to dedicate each Wednesday to talk about creating culture and adding to the culture of our community. You can read about it here on Randy Elrod's site.
This question of creating culture has resonated with me long before Recreate 08 in Nashville. Anyone who knows me knows that I love the Arts and I love the culture of the city which fosters the arts. After some time asking God--why don't you change the culture where I am ( more artistic, more expression, more Starbucks!) I felt the Lord say--"What are you doing to change the culture where you are? Until you do your part, you won't see my part (Not that God is dependent on me to move).

So, this fall, after a 25 year hiatus from the theater, I tried out for a production at our local theater. I had no idea if I could do it, but I tried. I ended up being.. A Buzzard. In fact, I was a Baptist Buzzard (Wallace in Hank The Cowdog). It was a children's play that was produced for our town's annual White Buffalo Days festival. I know, it's not a Broadway type of play, but it was invigorating to join with other artists in my town, many that I knew and many that I didn't, to work for 6 weeks on this production. You can see by this picture, my appearance was...stellar.Not only me, but my two daughters have been bitten by the theatrical bug ( both appeared in ALADDIN and THE SOUND OF MUSIC as well as my son who appeared in RUMPLESTILSKIN. It has even awakened in me a desire to direct a production sometime here in the future or to volunteer to be creative director for our small theater company. Who knows.

It just started with a small desire to change the culture where I live.