Joseph and Julianna Burdon know all about that. Kids need food. Clothes. Furniture, for cryin’ out loud. And when teen son, Daniel, starts thinking about college? Well, might as well lop off an arm and leg and try to sell them on the secondary limbs market.

Joseph loves his family, and he does his best to provide for them. Why, he’s working on an account that just might move the family financial ledger in the right direction. More than that, he believes passionately in what he’s developing: a campaign to support the National Association of Firefighters. Joseph’s father had been a firefighter for decades. So for Joseph, this campaign is important on a host of levels. In a way, it’s about family.

And if that means ignoring his own family members for a few days—or weeks, or maybe months—well, that’s the price a dad must pay right?

No, wife Julianna says. She’s had it up to her eyeballs with Joseph’s job. It’s not like she doesn’t appreciate his work ethic. She knows that on some level, he’s doing it for her and the kids. But fatherhood’s about more than putting meat on the table: It’s about meeting your wife and kids at that table. It’s about going to soccer games and school plays. It’s about going fishing and taking long walks filled with conversation.

And it’s especially about engaging in a small family reunion with Joseph’s mom and dad on the family ranch. It’s especially about spending Easter weekend with each other—particularly when it might be the last Easter they ever have together.

Joseph’s dad, known as Poppa to the grandkids, sick. While no one talks about it much, Joseph and Julianna know he might not have much time left. To spend one last glorious Easter weekend together—boating, fishing, maybe playing a game or two of charades—that’s what’s important, Julianna believes. This is time the family won’t ever get back. The job can wait.

Yeah, yeah, Joseph says. But he’s on the home stretch with this all-important project. He’ll just work a few more hours Easter weekend. Just a few more phone calls. A few more finishing touches on his presentation, scheduled for … Saturday.

The same Saturday that Poppa was going to take the boat on the lake with everyone—maybe for the last time.

Joseph could use a little help with his priorities. Everyone else in the family sees that clearly. But how can they help him see it for himself?

Maybe a little book that Poppa wrote can help—one about a man who always had His priorities straight. Poppa called it Forty-Seven Days With Jesus, and Joseph loved hearing it when he was young. Maybe it’s time that Joseph passed the story onto his own kids. Maybe it’s time he internalized the story’s deeper messages himself.

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You’ve got Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Animal, Rowlf and, of course, Kermit the Frog. They, alongside plenty of others, are famous names in households all across the world.

But every story has its beginning. And Kermit is ready to share it: the story of how the Muppets—approximately—got started.

You see, Kermit wasn’t always the green movie star you know him as today. At one point, he was content simply to play his banjo in his Floridian swamp. But when he hears about an offer of fame in Hollywood that’d give him the opportunity to make millions of people happy, well, he’s as tickled pink as any green frog could be.

Along the way, he meets many others looking to find fame in Hollywood, too, including plenty of the aforementioned names so familiar with us all.

But he also meets a dastardly villain, too: Doc Hopper, a Col. Sanders-like man who’d like Kermit to be the spokesman for his fried frog legs restaurant chain. And let’s just say that he’s got the deep fryers already sizzling in the event that Kermit declines the offer.

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That’s when the emaciated and hobbled Jean Valjean is finally released from his prison debts. Nearly 20 years he spent in near slavery—five for simply stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving child, another 14 for trying to escape his too-cruel bonds.

Valjean’s misery doesn’t end there, though. Even after parole he must carry and present his papers in every town and hamlet his bare, half-frozen feet can carry him to. Papers that mark him as a former criminal so that none of the locals will offer him work or give shelter to the likes of him. In fact, he’s hounded and beaten like a mongrel wherever he goes. Kindness and forgiveness are but the hopes of fools.

Fortunately for Valjean there is one man who is willing to offer him a bit of both. A priest sees him shivering in a church doorway and invites him in for a meal, some bread, a glass of wine—luxuries Valjean never believed he’d see again.

In spite of this great kindness, however, the marked man can’t keep himself from stealing the priest’s few silver plates and cups. It’s a shameful, ungrateful move born out of desperation. And he should have known that a criminal with a sack of stolen silver doesn’t get far. The authorities nab him and drag him to the church, ready to beat him and send him back to the galleys.

It’s then that Valjean gets his first glimpse of heaven’s grace. Of God’s infinite mercy even in the face of sickening sin.

The priest says that he freely gave the plates and cups to the ex-convict.

“In fact, you forgot the most valuable pieces,” the priest reports, shoving two silver candlesticks into Valjean’s sack. Then the kindly churchman whispers in Valjean’s ear, “You must use this silver to become an honest man.”

“What have I done, sweet Jesus?” Valjean shouts out as he gives lyrical voice to his inner pain and shame. “Is there another way to go?” And as he prays and cries before a church altar, the answer soon comes. Yes, there is another course, that inner voice seems to say. You must be a different man … a better man.

[Note: Spoilers are contained in the following sections.]

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This is a cautionary tale of fear and lust and pride.

Based on actual events where people died.

OK, so nobody actually dies—well, one girl does for 15 seconds, but she’s resuscitated. I digress.

This story is about Cady Heron. She was homeschooled in Africa for most of her life. But when her mom gets a job at a university in the States, they relocate, and Cady gets her first taste of a typical American high school.

Cady quickly realizes that the social ladder of American teenagers isn’t much different from the food chain of the animal kingdom. The less popular are devoured by those with greater social standing. Dating rituals strongly resemble mating rituals. And, of course, there’s an apex predator: Regina George, leader of the Plastics, the school’s most popular but meanest girls.

Cady believes that if she can get on Regina’s good side, high school may not be so bad. But this idea is swiftly shut down as naïve by her new friends, Janis and Damian.

Janis won’t tell Cady precisely why she hates Regina, just that the queen bee is a “scum-sucking life-ruiner.” So when Cady develops a crush on Regina’s ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels—a fact that Regina exploits to her advantage—the trio plots to do a little life-ruining of their own.

But just how far is Cady willing to go to be as popular as Regina? And will she stoop to Regina’s level along the way, becoming a mean girl herself?

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Even when it’s pouring rain you stand there, wet and dripping, in hopes of a sale while members of London’s society class wait for umbrellas and cabs.

But even flower girls have a sense of self-respect. And as one flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, hawks her meager wares, she spies a man watching her and taking notes. And be he police or detective, that is a step too far.

“I’m a good girl, I am,” she proclaims. “I ain’t done nuthin’ wrong by speaking to the gen’leman. I’ve a right to sell flowers if’n I keep off the kerb. I’m a respectable girl: so ‘elp me, I never spoke to ‘im ‘cept so far as to buy a flower off me,” she concludes with indignant fire.

That, however, sets something quite unexpected in motion.

For just as Eliza is no bad girl, the man she speaks to is no detective. No, he’s actually a pompous phonetics specialist named Professor Henry Higgins. And he’s taking notes on her speech, determining her origins and where she was raised based on her digraphs and diphthongs.

And before you can say Cap’n, buy a posey? Higgins has gone from comparing the woman’s speech to the “crooning of a bilious pigeon,” to proclaiming his ability to improve her through diligent training.

“You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days,” Higgins states over-loudly and with great confidence. “Well, sir, in six months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party.”

The cockney working-class girl, Eliza, is initially offended. But then she thinks about what it might be like to improve her job prospects, perhaps even become a real flower shop girl. It would offer the possibility of simple comfort. It would be “loverly.” So she seeks the professor out and asks him to proceed.  

Colonel Pickering, Higgins’ friend and fellow linguist, thrills at the concept. In fact, he’s eager enough to see the idea made possible, that he guarantees to cover expenses if Higgins proves successful.

Higgins smugly agrees.

So begins the story of Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, a most unlikely pair.

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Back before golden tickets and nut-sorting squirrels, Willy Wonka was merely an aspiring chocolatier. He humbly hoped to bring smiles to those around him with his elaborate recipes. So young Wonka traveled the world, spending seven years finding the best ingredients and perfecting his craft. And now, he’s come to the greatest chocolate-making city in the world to show off his eccentric inventions.

But starting a business costs money. And Wonka’s pockets are full of cocoa beans rather than sovereign coins. He doesn’t even have enough money to rent a hotel room to escape a cold winter night!

Fortunately, Wonka finds refuge at Mrs. Scrubbit’s laundry shop. She’s more than willing to let him stay the night and pay a single sovereign the next day. After all, that’s when Wonka plans to make his fortune. The only thing for Wonka to do is sign a contract promising to pay her back and prepare for his big day.

That preparation pays off. The public is blown away by Wonka’s creations—so blown away, in fact, that the young chocolatier’s dramatic debut causes some worry for the city’s three other chocolatiers: Fickelgruber, Slugworth and Prodnose. The corrupt men have colluded to corner the market on chocolate, and they’re concerned that Wonka’s passionate creations will destroy their collective conglomerate. So they call the police on Wonka, accusing him of causing a public disturbance; the officers confiscate all of Wonka’s earnings for their trouble, leaving him just as broke as when his day began.

Things only get worse from there. Because when Wonka returns to Mrs. Scrubbit, she tells him that even though the room was only a single sovereign, all the other comforts he enjoyed—like, say, the stairs to his room, for example—brought his total bill up to 10,000 sovereign. If Wonka could read, he would’ve read about such charges in the fine print of his contract. But now, he’s stuck working for Mrs. Scrubbit to pay off his debt at one coin per day, which will put his chocolate dreams on hold for roughly 27 years.

But the wonky Wonka isn’t deterred by the setback. Not at all. He’ll sneak out of his prison and continue to sell his chocolate to the masses. Gradually, he’ll raise enough money to pay off his debt, and then he will open his shop.

Of course, there’s still the issue of Fickelgruber, Slugworth and Prodnose. Because when they see that Wonka’s back in action, they’ll do whatever it takes to put him out of it for good.

Even if that means sending him to sleep with the chocolate fishes.

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Celie feels as though God has abandoned her.

First, her mother die. That leaves her and her sister, Nettie, to their sexually abusive father. Celie has two children by him, both of whom he takes away from her, saying he’ll “give them to God.”

Then, he marries her off to a man called Mister, who physically abuses her and tries to rape Nettie.

Nettie fights Mister off, but he threatens to kill her if she ever returns. So she runs away, leaving Celie without an ally in their small Georgia town. Nettie promises to write, but Celie never receives a single letter, and she assumes God must have taken Nettie home.

Eight years after that, Mister’s eldest son, Harpo, marries a woman named Sofia. And for the first time since Nettie was run out of town, Celie feels like she has a sister to look out for her.

But then Celie betrays Sofia. Jealous of Sofia’s strength and outspokenness, Celie tells Harpo that if he wants his bride to mind him the way that she does Mister, he’ll need to beat Sofia.

Well, Sofia won’t stand for that. So she leaves Harpo, taking their child with her. And although she also leaves Celie to battle her abuser alone, Sofia’s fierce resilience begins to give Celie hope for a better life.

Another five years go by. And though Celie desperately wants to take a page out of Sofia’s book and give Mister what for, she’s also terrified of him. So, Celie continues to wonder where God is in all of this. But then Shug Avery, a jazz singer and Mister’s old mistress, comes to town.

Shug teaches Celie all sorts of things about faith, sisterhood, romance and even sex. Plus, when Shug’s around, Mister doesn’t beat Celie so much. But most importantly, she finds a letter from Nettie—one Mister had been trying to hide from Celie—proving that Celie isn’t alone in the world. She still has a sister who loves her.

Unfortunately, Shug doesn’t stick around long. And soon, Celie is right back where she started.

But maybe this time around will be different. Because Sofia taught Celie how to stand up for herself. Shug showed Celie that there are people in the world who love her. And now, Celie knows that Nettie is alive, giving her more hope and courage than she’s had in a long time. So maybe God hasn’t abandoned her after all. Maybe she just needed to know where to look for Him.

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It’s the same old story: Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy and girl get engaged. Girl discovers that she’s carrying the Son of God. Boy—

Ah. So maybe this story isn’t quite a cookie-cutter romance after all. This one involves quite a bit more sand than your standard Drew Barrymore flick. It’s got ancient prophecies and power-hungry, sleep-deprived kings; angels of the Lord and rather feisty donkeys.

It’s the Nativity story. And even if this version looks and feels a little different than most renditions do, I’m sure most of you know the story well.

And it is a love story: the love between a man and a woman; the love between a king and his throne; and most importantly, the love that our Creator has for His creation—and how that love manifested in one cosmos-changing gift.

And let’s not forget all the song-and-dance numbers!

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That fact alone would seem completely miraculous, especially since the Pharoah had specifically declared that all first-born male Hebrews must be put to death. But that was only the beginning of the miraculous things that would happen to Moses.

Of course, they didn’t seem so wonderful or miraculous when they were happening.

When he ran across his real sister, Miriam, for instance, and she said that God had given her visions that Moses would be their people’s deliverer, Moses simply turned away. Why should Moses do anything to spoil the good fortune of being from the house of the Pharoah?

Moses’ close bond with his brother, Ramses, and his love for his father the Pharoah were far more valuable than any connection he might have with a Hebrew past.  

So then when he (almost accidentally) kills an Egyptian guard for mercilessly beating a slave, Moses is beside himself.

That foolish choice would be nothing but his own ruin. A child of Pharoah cannot be seen as a murderer. So he must leave Egypt. And how could anyone see the miraculous in something like that? But indeed, that is only one more step in a preordained path. Moses doesn’t want what’s in front of him. He never wanted it. But he will, some forty years hence, be empowered to return to Egypt as a messenger, one who will deliver the captive Hebrews from bondage.

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He’s fond of factors, partial to plus signs, devoted to long division. If he was the sort of 12-year-old who carved things in trees (which he’s not), he might take a pocketknife and carve “Prem + math = (heart).”

He’s pretty good at it, too—so good, in fact, that he and his middle school math frienemy, Claire, are both being bussed to a nearby Jersey City high school to take a math class there. The middle-school math curriculum is just too easy.

And on Prem’s first day, it looks as though high school won’t be much of a hurdle, either. The enthusiastic teacher tosses a pop quiz the class’s way, and Prem’s the only student to finish by the ring of the bell.

But the teacher, Ms. Sage, has another equation to toss out before class is dismissed—and it’s a doozy. She wants her students to construct an algebraic equation where they themselves are a factor. In other words, “X+Y-Z=Prem.”  

But that poses a problem for Prem—one that a scientific calculator can’t help with. Because outside of math, who is he?

Prem doesn’t really know. Sure, he knows what his mother wants him to be—and yeah, he wants that, too. But the kid knows next to nothing about his father, Suresh. He died when Prem was just 5 years old. Sometimes Prem doesn’t even remember what he looked like, much less who he was. And in the algebraic equation of Prem, Suresh would surely be a prime variable.

Prem’s mom, Priya, doesn’t like talking about Suresh much. She wants them both to move on. But after some prodding, she tells Prem about the night she and Suresh met—at a hip, happening lounge where Suresh was spitting a few rhymes.

Yep, that’s right: Prem’s dad was a rapper. One of the best, his mother says. And Prem starts to wonder whether he might have the chops to rap a little, too.

So Prem digs through an old shoebox filled with Suresh’s old stuff, the contents of which he’s never seen before. He pulls out Suresh’s rhyme book, where he had jotted down words, lyrics, thoughts, sayings. “The best never rest,” Prem reads again and again.

And then, when Prem looks up, he sees him: his father. And without so much as a 10-minute catch-up session, Suresh encourages Prem to explore the rap wrapped inside him. “Hip-hop is in your DNA,” he tells him. “You gotta dream big, little man.”

For most of his life, Prem’s been known as the math guy. And honestly, he’s loved it. But could Prem love more than coefficients and constants? Could he come to cherish beatboxes and turntable scratches as much? More?

Only one way to find out: Start rapping.

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