VOID: The God Pill
On Sunday VOID had its second event, an event we called “The God Pill.” This event was certainly more ambiguous than our first event, which I think provided more room for interpretation and multiple meanings. I think the event went really well. There was a good turnout and everything came together with all the various elements (audio, visuals, readings, reflections, etc). On a personal level, I found the event very meaningful.
The topic of the event was initially inspired by some of the negative critique from the first event. There was not a lot of negative critique, but some people felt like we did not offer enough hope, or even give God at all, just a void. So with this event we decided to bottle God – to put him in pill form. At first glance this probably appears to be a simple-minded critique of our critics, but that was not our intention at all. I hope we pointed the critique firmly at ourselves, because don’t we all attempt to create a God Pill? Whether our God Pill is God or something else, I think we often become “addicted” to various things that keep us from engaging the world in all its fullness. So we attempted to address this issue in what I hope were interesting and provocative ways.
The event started with a crazy doctor/pharmaceutical rep pushing his latest creation – the God Pill. From here we had some readings and personal reflections dealing with some of the issues I mentioned above. We had some music/visuals related to this theme and we each considered our own “addiction,” writing it down on a pill bottle label. The second half dealt more with a move toward engaging this world and leaving behind our addictions. But can we really ever leave them behind completely? On some level aren’t we always grasping for another God Pill? I hope the ambiguity/difficulty of this question came across in some way. At one point I admitted that in some sense VOID is yet another God Pill for me – another way I am attempting to grasp God and confine him to a pill. We finished the event with a powerful liturgical reading (perhaps I can post that later) and a song. Of course our crazy pharm rep reappeared at the end and gave everyone a pill bottle. The pill bottles were labeled with the addictions everyone had written earlier (randomly assigned) and the bottles were filled, not with pills, but with genuine Waco dirt. I think the dirt can take on multiple meanings, but for me it basically symbolized the engagement with life, the here and now, this world.
I was perhaps most pleased with the number of people who stayed afterwards for conversation. I’m sure not all the conversation was about the event, but I know quite a bit was, and I think that’s what we’re really trying to provoke – good conversation.
Any thoughts? Were you there? What did the event make you think about? Did you find a different meaning in the event than I did? I’d love to hear what you thought.
The next VOID event will be Sunday night, May 3 at 7:30pm at Treff’s in Waco. I hope to see you there.
