Christian Filmmakers

Yeah, I know.  These are just my feeble attempts to contribute something in a very short amount of time without the proper resources from which to pull material.  :(

I really appreciate the practical thoughts and experience you bring to this forum, Josh.  Keep it coming.  Sincere thanks!

Female Monologue—Contribution #1

From Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose

This is the true story of Mrs. Darlene Deibler Rose, a missionary held in a Japanese prison camp during WWII. 

I know this is not a true monologue by Josh’s definition, but I’m going to ask that it be considered anyway since it’s got a fair amount of dramatic potential.  I really like this one.

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Late one afternoon of a day when I had not been interrogated, I heard laughter and animated conversation filtering in through the bars of the transom.  I thought, “Hey, I wonder if that isn’t the girl who was in the office the day I was brought from Kampili.  She was kind enough to deliver the housecoat to Margaret.  She sounds happy.  Now who around here could make anyone happy?”  Curiosity impelled me off the floor.  I felt delight that someone was happy and longed to witness it, even if I couldn’t share it.  I climbed to grab the bars and pulled myself into position.  There on the ledge was a knife!  By sheer effort of will I hung on, my scalp crawling.  “Dear God, where did that come from?  Who put it there?  When?  Could it have been while I was in the hearing room?”

I slid to the floor, thoughts of happy people completely blocked out.  Who?  When?  Why?  Were my captors expecting me to commit suicide?  Then they wouldn’t have to continue the interrogations—all those ridiculous trumped-up charges.  Or was that knife put there as evidence that I was in contact with someone on the outside who had brought it to me, and I had hidden it there?  I tried to remember all I had heard and read of Kempeitai dealings with prisoners, and a score of other possibilities paraded down the halls of my mind to be considered and explored.  I planned to attack the guard and attempt an escape—oh the possibilities were legion.

I stretched out flat on my back and breathed deeply, trying to still the nauseous churning of my stomach.  “Lord,” I prayed, “I need counsel.  Should I hide the knife?  If so, where?”  No, they would be sure to search the cell, and there were no hiding places.  If they found the knife, my problems would be compounded.  “Should I wait until dark and throw it out into the courtyard?”  No good.  They would be sure to find my fingerprints on it.  My fingerprints were all over that door and window.  With extreme care, using the skirt of that wonderful all-purpose dress, I cleaned the bars, the transom, the doorjamb, and the window ledge.  Then on my knees, with my face to the floor, I explained that whole hopeless situation to the Lord.  With the telling, quietness invaded my spirit and I began to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Elijah and Daniel, the God of miracles.  “Lord, if You could open the Red Sea to deliver Your people from Egyptian tyranny, and if You could send Your angel to shut the mouths of lions that they might not kill Daniel—then, Lord, it is nothing to You to remove that knife.  Thank You, Father.”

For three days I never left the cell.  No one came or went without my notice.  None could have reached that knife without a ladder or without my hearing.  Late in the afternoon of the third day, I crawled up to find an empty ledge.  The knife was gone!”—and Father, erase all memory of it from the mind of whoever put the knife there.”  He did just that, bless His holy name.  I didn’t even try to figure it out.  I just knew it was the Lord.  I let God be God, and truly believed that with Him all things were still possible.

Female Monologue—Contribution #2

From In His Steps by Charles M. Sheldon

The more I play this one out the more it grows on me.

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Dear friends… I do not want any of you to credit me with an act of great generosity.  I have come to know lately that the money which I have called my own is not mine, but God’s.  If I, as steward of His, see some wise way to invest His money, It is not an occasion for vainglory or thanks from any one simply because I have proved honest in my administration of the funds He has asked me to use for his glory.  I have been thinking of this very plan for some time.  The fact is, dear friends, that in our coming fight with the whiskey power in Raymond—and it has only just begun—we shall need the NEWS to champion the Christian side.  You all know that all the other papers are for the saloon.  As long as the saloon exists, the work of rescuing dying souls at the Rectangle is carried on at a terrible disadvantage.  What can Mr. Gray do with his gospel meetings when half his converts are drinking people, daily tempted and enticed by the saloon on every corner?  It would be giving up to the enemy to allow the NEWS to fail.  I have great confidence in Mr. Norman’s ability.  I have not seen his plans, but I have the same confidence that he has in making the paper succeed if it is carried forward on a large enough scale.  I cannot believe that Christian intelligence in journalism will be inferior to un-Christian intelligence, even when it comes to making the paper pay financially.  So that is my reason for putting this money—God’s, not mine—into this powerful agent for doing as Jesus would do.  If we can keep such a paper going for one year, I shall be willing to see that amount of money used in that experiment.  Do not thank me.  Do not consider my doing it a wonderful thing.  What have I done with God’s money all these years but gratify my own selfish personal desires?  What can I do with the rest of it but try to make some reparation for what I have stolen from God?  That is the way I look at it now.  I believe it is what Jesus would do.

Female Monologue—Contribution #3

From In His Steps by Charles M. Sheldon

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About my other plan, Rachel, I want you to work with me.  Rollin and I are going to buy up a large part of the property in the Rectangle.  The field where the tent now is, has been in litigation for years.  We mean to secure the entire tract as soon as the courts have settled the title.  For some time I have been making a special study of the various forms of college settlements and residence methods of Christian work and Institutional church work in the heart of great city slums.  I do not know that I have yet been able to tell just what is the wisest and most effective kind of work that can be done in Raymond.  But I do know this much.  My money—I mean, God’s, which He wants me to use—can build wholesome lodging-houses, refuges for poor women, asylums for shop girls, safety for many and many a lost girl like Loreen.  And I do not want to be simply a dispenser of this money.  God help me!  I do want to put myself into the problem.  But you know, Rachel, I have a feeling all the time that all that limitless money and limitless personal sacrifice can possibly do, will not really lessen very much the awful condition at the Rectangle as long as the saloon is legally established there.  I think that is true of any Christian work now being carried on in any great city.  The saloon furnishes material to be saved faster than the settlement or residence or rescue mission work can save it.  (snip)  The number of those who have promised to do as Jesus would is increasing.  If we once have, say, five hundred such disciples in Raymond, the saloon is doomed.  But now, dear, I want you to look at your part in this plan for capturing and saving the Rectangle.  Your voice is a power.  I have had many ideas lately.  Here is one of them.  You could organize among the girls a Musical Institute; give them the benefit of your training.  There are some splendid voices in the rough there.  Did any one ever hear such singing as that yesterday by those women?  Rachel, what a beautiful opportunity!  You shall have the best of material in the way of organs and orchestras that money can provide, and what cannot be done with music to win souls there into higher and purer and better living?

Hey, I’m sorry I have been rather absent for a while ( I had a busy Saturday).

Thank you Ruthanne for taking the time to find all of those pieces. I didn’t mean to keep you up till 2 Am.  :o  

I’ll try to make a decision by later today.

No worries, Loren.  I got a later start than I intended but it wasn’t a problem.  I’m a night owl.

I look forward to your selections, whether they’re any of mine or not.  I hope you get a great response of entries for this challenge!  I think it’s going to be fun.

My decision is made. These are the 2 most one-sided-converstion monologues suggested.

For men:

You must understand, friends, that I know nothing of who I was and whence I came into this Dark World. I remember no time when I was not dwelling, as now, at the court of this all but heavenly Queen; but my thought is that she saved my from some evil enchantment and brought me hither of her exceeding bounty. (Honest Frog-foot, your cup ic empty. Suffer me to refill it). and And this seems to me the likelier because even now I am bound by a spell, from which my Lady alone can free me. Every night there comes an hour when my mind is most horribly changed, after my mind, my body. For first I become furious and wild and would rush upon my dearest friends to kill them, if I were not bound. And soon after that, I turn into the likeness of a great serpent, hungry, fierce, and deadly. (Sir, be pleased to take another breast of pigeon, I entreat you.) So they tell me,  and they certainly speak truth, for my Lady says the same. I myself know nothing of it, for when my hour is past I awake forgetful of all that vile fit and in my proper shape and sound mind - saving that I am somewhat wearied. (Little lady, eat one of these honey cakes, which are brought for me from some barbarous land in the far south of the world.) Now the Queen’s majesty knows by her art that I shall be freed from this enchantment when once she has made me king of a land in the Overworld and set its crown upon my head. The land is already chosen and the very place of our breaking out. Her Earthmen have worked day and night digging a way beneath it, and have now gone so far and so high that they tunnel not a score of feet beneath the very grass on which the Updwellers of that country walk. It will be very soon now that those Uplanders’ fate will come upon them. She Herself is at the digging to-night, and I expect a message to go to her. Then the thin roof on earth which still keeps me from my kingdom will be broken through, and with her to guide me and a thousand Earthmen at my back, I shall ride forth in arms, fall suddenly on our enemies, slay their chief men, cast down their strong places, and doubtless be their crowned king within four and twenty hours.“

For women:

About my other plan, Rachel, I want you to work with me.  Rollin and I are going to buy up a large part of the property in the Rectangle.  The field where the tent now is, has been in litigation for years.  We mean to secure the entire tract as soon as the courts have settled the title.  For some time I have been making a special study of the various forms of college settlements and residence methods of Christian work and Institutional church work in the heart of great city slums.  I do not know that I have yet been able to tell just what is the wisest and most effective kind of work that can be done in Raymond.  But I do know this much.  My money—I mean, God’s, which He wants me to use—can build wholesome lodging-houses, refuges for poor women, asylums for shop girls, safety for many and many a lost girl like Loreen.  And I do not want to be simply a dispenser of this money.  God help me!  I do want to put myself into the problem.  But you know, Rachel, I have a feeling all the time that all that limitless money and limitless personal sacrifice can possibly do, will not really lessen very much the awful condition at the Rectangle as long as the saloon is legally established there.  I think that is true of any Christian work now being carried on in any great city.  The saloon furnishes material to be saved faster than the settlement or residence or rescue mission work can save it.  (snip)  The number of those who have promised to do as Jesus would is increasing.  If we once have, say, five hundred such disciples in Raymond, the saloon is doomed.  But now, dear, I want you to look at your part in this plan for capturing and saving the Rectangle.  Your voice is a power.  I have had many ideas lately.  Here is one of them.  You could organize among the girls a Musical Institute; give them the benefit of your training.  There are some splendid voices in the rough there.  Did any one ever hear such singing as that yesterday by those women?  Rachel, what a beautiful opportunity!  You shall have the best of material in the way of organs and orchestras that money can provide, and what cannot be done with music to win souls there into higher and purer and better living?

If you have a problem with either of them, just let me know.

WOO HOO! this is going to be great :D . I can’t wait to do my vid

Wow!  Two of my favorite books, Narnia and In His Steps!  This is gonna be great.  :D

Loren, I’m not clear how much time we have to rehearse and prepare our submissions.  When you have a moment, could you give us a recap of the contest guidelines? 

Tell us about deadlines, where we need to post our videos and any other pertinent info we may need. 

Thank you!  : )

I hope I’m able to carve out the time to do this and most of all, not chicken out! 

: P