A Bit of Earth

When a thing is wick it has a life about it
Now maybe not a life like you and me
But somewhere there's a singles streak of green inside it.
Come and let me show you what I mean.

When a think is wick it has a light around it
Maybe not a light that you can see
But hiding down below a spark's asleep inside it
Waiting for the right time to be seen.

You clear away the dead partsso the tender buds can form
Loosen up the earth and let the roots get warm
Let the roots get warm
Come a mild day,come a warm rain
Come a snow drop, a-comin' up
Come a Lily, Come a lilac come to call
Callin' all of us to come and see

St. Therese called herself the Little Flower. She wrote beautifully about how God had carefully planted and tended her all through her life. She grew up in the rich soil of her family and was carefully sheltered and cared for until she was transplanted to her Carmelite convent where she lived the rest of her life blooming happily.She is probably not the first one to use a garden as an analogy for our lives and our relationship with God, but she always pops into my head when I think about my favorite musical so I'm giving her an honorable mention.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, who wrote some of those formative stories that make me who I am, used the image of a garden to symbolize changed, growth and healing. The Secret Garden is about several broken people finding healing in a garden. It's a classic of children's literature that every girl, at least, should read at a certain age.

Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman who adapted it for the stage accomplished what everyone who adapts books tries for; fidelity to the heart and spirit of the story. They took a beautiful book and made it into an equally beautiful musical with essentially the same story and message to give us: A person's life becomes meaningful and beautiful when it is occupied with somehow giving life to others.
I really can't discribe it. The more I try the more convinced I am boring everyone and not getting my point across nearly so well as that show does on it's own. You just have to listen to the soundtrack (or read the book first if you haven't). It is my fovorite and, I think, musical theater at it's best because, although the story is told apart from the music, the songs add a layer of meaning to ever scene that couldn't possibly be put into a sript.

Quick, irrelevant reasons I love this musical:

• There are ghosts!
• I want Dicken to be my older brother
• Lots of songs I can sing at the top of my lungs when I'm alone in the car.
• Duets! Trios!! Quartetes!!! Now, if I could find some other people to sing them with me...
• In general I love the music; "Winter's on the Wing," "I heard someone crying," "Wick," "Lily's Eyes" *sigh* "Race you to the top of the morning" so many and SO Good.
• The girl who plays Mary on the soundtrack is briliant. She doesn't sound obnoxious and over confident like a typical broadway child star, she is just a little girl.
• Martha and Dicken and their Yorkshire dialect!
• When Dicken sings, sometimes he is talking to Mary and sometimes he is talking to the audience about Mary and sometimes he is talking about Spring and you can never really tell which.
• The music does such an amazing job of showing how the characters change and their relationships to each other.