Gospel According to Glee – 40 Days at McKinley High

Day 25 – Wednesday after 4th Sunday of Lent 

To Read: (Series 3 Episode 8)

[MERCEDES, SANTANA, and BRITTANY have left New Directions to join a rival all-girl choir, the Trouble Tones, which is directed by SHELBY, the teacher who adopted QUINN’s baby.  They lose to New Directions in the final of a competition.  QUINN decides to have a heart to heart talk with them)

QUINN:  All right, ladies, girl talk.

SANTANA:  No. Uh-uh. Don’t you dare try and give us a pep talk.

MERCEDES:  Or ask us to come back to New Directions – not interested.

BRITTANY:  Wait, is it even possible?  Do you think they would really take us back?

MERCEDES:  Of course they would take us back.  But I’m telling you, I’m not going.

QUINN:  Do you know what growing up is about?  Losing things.  In six months, we’ll all be gone, scattered.

MERCEDES:  We’ll keep in touch.

QUINN:  Yeah, but it won’t be the same.  When we see each other, it’ll be a special occasion.  It’ll be different.  I don’t want to grow up yet.  I’m not ready to lose you girls.

MERCEDES:  What are we supposed to do?  Come back to Glee Club and sing background for Blaine and Berry until we graduate?  I’m not doing that again.  We know what it feels like to be out front now.

QUINN:  What if Mr. Shue agreed to let the Trouble Tones sing at least one number per competition?

SANTANA:  Well, even if Mr. Shue did agree to that, Rachel never would.

QUINN:  What if I told you that they both already did?

MERCEDES:  I’m listening.

QUINN:  Look, I know I went a little crazy.  But I’m here now.  I’m 17 – I have the rest of my life in front of me.  I love Glee Club.  I love you girls.  And when we’re 27, or 87, I want us to be able to look back on these next couple months and talk about how it was the best times of our lives.  Can’t do that if we’re not all together.  We’re doing a big number in the auditorium to celebrate our victory and to prepare for Regionals.  We could use a couple more girl voices.  Let me know if you hear about anybody who might want to join.

To Watch:

‘We Are Young’ sung by ‘New Directions and the Trouble Tones’

Original Artist: Fun ft. Jannelle Monáe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-VhdeuRtwE

 

From the Scriptures: 

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! ² It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.  ³ Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. ⁴ And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, “I repent”, you must forgive.’    (Luke 17v1-4)

 

To Reflect: 

QUINN:  Do you know what growing up is about?  Losing things.  In six months, we’ll all be gone, scattered.

In Series 3 the Glee Club does a great deal of growing up and loses many precious things along the way.  Some of it is because that is what adolescents must do.  Some of it is because of circumstance.  Some of it, sadly, is because of adults not caring enough for adolescents.

Santana is ‘outed’ as Lesbian, Puck is seduced into an inappropriate relationship by a teacher, Quinn faces hard choices as to how much she should be involved in the life of her child Beth.  It is when things such as this happen at the instigation of adults in positions of trust that the words ‘neck’ ‘millstone’ and ‘sea’ come to mind…

Growing up should be about children budding into adolescence and then blooming into flower but this is not always the case.  Sometimes it seems as if innocence is only ever born to be betrayed and childlike trust given just to broken.  Despite us wanting to believe Carroll Bryant’s[1] oft quoted words growing up is mandatory.  It’s something we suspect from our earliest as did Wendy Darling when telling to the tale of Peter Pan…

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!” This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

After all that the Glee Club go through in their senior year – the past haunts them, the future taunts them, the present dismays them – the have learnt that to ‘grow up’ they must take something of their youth with them or else, as Wendy Darling learns, they will never fly.

Too many people, (I am tempted to say almost all people) in one way or another have had their childhood stolen and their memories scarred.  If they are lucky like Quinn (Look, I know I went a little crazy.  But I’m here now) the wounds heal, self-knowledge grows, and they go on to fly.  If not they limp through life and often pass on the abuse they received to others.

Working with Children and Young people, being a parent or a favourite aunt or uncle, being a godparent, is an awesome privilege.  Those who are hold souls in their hands that can be moulded like putty into almost any shape – as those with evil intent have proven too many times.  If we are involved in the lives of Children and Young People we are to tread carefully around them.  They are not given to us that we may make them in our own image but we are permitted to be their guardians for a short space that we may help them become whom our Beloved has made them to be.

It is all too easy to make our mark on a child, as did Emma’s parents in yesterday’s reflection, which will scar them for life.

Those of us who stand on the other side of realising that we must grow up are called to watch over, ward off evil, and wonder at the miracle of a new person growing in front of our eyes and be thankful.

  

To Pray:

God says, I like youngsters.  I want people to be like them.

I don’t like old people unless they are still children.  I want only children in my kingdom; this has been decreed from the beginning of time.
Youngsters – twisted, humped, wrinkled, white-bearded – all kinds of youngster, but youngsters. 

There is no changing it; it has been decided, there is room for no one else.
I like little children because my likeness has not yet been dulled in them.  They
have not botched my likeness.  They are new, pure without a blot, without a smear. 

So, when I gently lean over them, I recognise myself in them.
I like them because they are still growing, they are still improving.

They are on the road, there are on their way….[2]

(Michael Quoist – Prayers of Life)

  

To Do:

• Pray for a child
• Pray for a parent
• Pray for a teacher
• Pray for a Youth leader
• Pray for the child within you

 

Reprise:  Click here to watch the original version of today’s song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv6dMFF_yts

Acknowledgements:

The prayer from ‘Prayers of Life’ is copyright  © Michel Quoist, 1966
Scripture quotations are copyright © New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Transcripts of Glee Episodes were made with thanks to subslikescripts.com
These Reflections, ‘ ‘Gospel According to Glee’ are copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2021 and may be reproduced without charge on condition that the source is acknowledged.

[1] Read more of her quotes here.
[2] This is only part of the prayer.  The whole prayer may be read here.