The Gong Show was a game show that ran on television in the mid 1970s—a sort of “amateur hour” contest in which ordinary people from all walks of life offered their talents (a term used loosely in this context) on stage before a live studio audience, a host, and three celebrity judges. Each act was typically only three or four minutes long, but if it wasn’t going over well with the crowd or the judges, the contestant could at any moment be brought to a sudden halt if one of the judges struck a large gong that was on set.
The Gong Show’s creator, Chuck Barris, reluctantly took on the host duties when his first choice for the role backed out because of the absurdity of the show, but Barris was terrific. There were a few regular judges like Jaye P. Morgan, Jamie Farr, and Arte Johnson, and a few regulars on stage like the Unknown Comic, who performed with a brown paper bag over his head, and Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine, an overweight middle-aged man who showed off his limited dance moves to the beats of the energetic live band that accompanied the acts, which included singers, dancers, acrobats, jugglers, plate-spinners, and those offering comedic sets and skits of every sort.
What made the show work, though, was the gong. The huge gong suspended behind the judges created a sense of suspense. Often the audience and judges would be delighted with an act. More often though, a sense of tense uncertainty emerged during the course of an act over the question of whether the performer on stage would make it to the end before the audience demanded a judge bang the gong and put the act out of its misery.
The most memorable moments of each episode typically went something like this: A celebrity judge rises, moves closer to the gong, and takes up the mallet as the studio audience either roots them on to hit it or begs them not to. Often the performer would see what was happening and speed up to finish the act, shifting into a higher gear, playing the spoons more earnestly, dancing faster, singing more intensely. Anything to stay in the game and keep their act afloat. This in turn would engage the crowd even further, making the whole scene more chaotic, until the judge struck the gong or the act concluded as planned. That, in essence, was The Gong Show.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes my life seems like a version of The Gong Show. We see things going off-track. We feel the building chaos of things being taken out of our hands. We sense the possibility of failure ahead, and—worrying and anxious—we try to shift into a higher gear, doing everything in our power to forestall the crash. We start dancing faster. Our acrobatics get more out of control. Our singing, our talking, our acting all grow quicker. We get further out of tune. We can’t keep all the plates spinning. We can’t keep all the juggling balls in the air.
When I think of the sound of a gong, I definitely think of Chuck Barris and his crazy Gong Show but also of how the very same instrument is often used in meditative practices in an almost opposite way—not to flare us up but to calm us down. In some meditative practices, the sound of the gong is an invitation not to move faster and with more intensity, but to stop, to drop what one is doing, and to meditate or to pray; to begin a quiet inner journey that leads to peace, to wisdom, and a new connection with the transcendent.
We’re setting out into what can be a chaotic time of the year—Thanksgiving and the bustling season of Christmas. Really, it might be more accurate to say we’re always in the midst of busy times. The velocity of events seems ever-increasing. We’re being notified constantly of this and that and of something more with all sorts of chimes, buzzes, and beeps. They’re incessant, and if they’re not going off, it seems like they’re always just about to. Maybe in this season, when you feel things are getting off-track—if you’re worried about losing control, of getting through your whole act—instead of moving faster, of trying to keep all the plates spinning and all the balls in the air, consider the possibility that the Gong Show gong about to go off in your head might be calling you not to speed up, but to slow down.
God—May I accept Your invitation to do less, to find peace, to find wisdom, and to gain a new connection…with You. Amen.
