one man in his time plays many parts

In Shakespeare's vision All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts,
meaning that he plays many parts in his own life story. But it is also true that one man, or woman, plays many parts in others' productions. Some wittingly and some unwittingly.

It is curious to me to think of the roles we play in one another's lives - often without realizing it. We all have our own life story, peopled with characters we both know and construe. There are the main actors, outside of oneself, of course, who play large parts, and then there are all the supporting roles and bit parts, often played by people who never auditioned to be in our lives at all. We all play some big roles in other people's life stories: mother, daughter, sister, friend, counselor, teacher, boss, etc. And then we all moonlight (sleepwalk??) in other dramas, either without knowing it or without realizing the importance of our role.

Let me illustrate. I remember a time when I really offended someone without knowing it. The funny thing was, before someone told me how I had slighted this person, I had no idea I was even capable of slighting her- that I was even a person of interest in her life. She was only a walk-on in my script. . . but I had been elevated to a much larger role in her drama. Funny how that can happen without our even knowing.

I think about some of the actors in my life story who may not know the parts they play. There is the woman who plays the part of the fashionista; the one whose style I always study because she always looks so good. There is the woman who performs a near perfect balancing act between her role as a mother and her creative pursuits. There is the well-read individual and the self-absorbed teenager. There is the runner who makes me feel guilty and the runner who is still my best friend. Probably most of these individuals would be surprised at how I have cast them. But these are the roles they play on my stage.

In one of my all-time favorite movies, About a Boy, the protagonist discovers, to his surprise and discomfort, that he is on center stage in someone else's life. He becomes angry when he is accused of not taking responsibility for his influence in another's life, not realizing that he was part of more people's lives than his own. The point of this very funny movie is that life IS an ensemble drama, like it or not. "No man is an island," a quote attributed to Jon Bon Jovi, provides the theme of the movie.

Sometime after Shakespeare wrote, Robert Burns wished, "O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us An foolish notion," but I'm not sure I'd really want that gift. It would be helpful sometimes to be able to identify our foibles and blemishes, but I think it would feel like too heavy a responsibility to bear. To worry about the quality of our work in dramas we have not asked to join, to realize we may loom large in the life stories of people we feel we hardly know or barely notice would wear us out. How can we play a part well when we've never seen the script? How can we get the stage business down when we are in so many dramas at the same time?

In I Thessalonians the apostle Paul prays that the Lord will "cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all men. . ." and I think that's the best direction. If we are always striving to do what is best for all men we may hope to execute any part we play honorably and with integrity. Our desire should be that our entrances and exits will carry with them the sweet aroma of Christ that will linger even after we have left the stage. That alone will make our performances truly memorable.