What A Scoop!

Tad Lincoln in James Prideaux's The Last of Mrs. Lincoln with Julie Harris, at the Kennedy Center Opera House and the ANTA Theater on Broadway (1972-3)

I do believe I missed my calling as a journalist. Of course, this one was thrown into my lap by the subject himself. Once I had the first bit of information, all it took was a little stalking on the internet to find the picture above.

Here I was thinking, "What on earth will be the subject of my next post? I have nothing. Is my life as a blogger finished, done?" I wasn't in the mood to post about the feast day of Joseph Butler, the sermon-writer and refuter of Deism. We had so many feast days this week, that I was worn out with dealing with saints.

Then I find this in my comments:

In the shameless past-self-promotion vein... in my former life as an actor I performed ages ago (1972) before our nearest thing to royalty: Pat Nixon and Julie Eisenhower, who sat in the presidential box at the Kennedy Center opera house in DC. The play, in its pre-Broadway run, was about another First Lady: The Last of Mrs. Lincoln, with Julie Harris in the titular role. I was Tad Lincoln, the youngest surviving son, who died towards the end of act one. In any case, after the performance, Miss Harris was whisked away by the Secret Service to meet the "royalty" and had her picture taken with them (they both towered over her). When the framed photo arrived some weeks later at the theater in NY, I happened to be present as Julie unwrapped it. She smiled and said, "This will prove to my mother that I've finally made it!"
Thanks for evoking these off-topic memories, and I hope you don't mind the sharing... and glad to hear the other Julie is perhaps having a change of heart about the direction taken by the GOP -- the party of Lincoln!

My friends, the picture is of Tobias Haller, with none other than the great actress, Julie Harris, Yes, the Tobias whom many of us know and love, exercising another of his many gifts. As I told him one day in the comments at his blog, In A Godward Direction, God had chosen to give him an unfair share of gifts. He's a parish priest, a theologian, an artist, a poet, a musician and composer of music, and, his learning notwithstanding, he preaches lovely, accessible sermons. And he's nice to old ladies. I'm sure I'm leaving out a gift or two.

Now we learn that in another life, Tobias was an actor and got to associate with celebrities. It's just too much. Life is surely not fair. However, Jesus had no patience with his followers who complained about the lack of fairness. Remember the parables of the prodigal son and the laborers in the vineyard?

Also, as I said when I complained to him about unfairness, Tobias gives his gifts freely, which is the very reason that God gives each of us gifts.

Tobias, I didn't ask you about this first, because I wanted to surprise you, or shock you, or something. If you don't like it, I will take it down