Paducah in da Moonlight

Bearings

2012-01-31T08:21:00.006-06:00

As I talk to my parents by phone I'm aware of age taking its toll. My father who was once strong and active is slowly pulling in and getting tired easily. When I talk with him, I mask the worries about his health and talk instead about the weather. I try to stay focused on things he can easily converse about and things he can physically do. I talk about how maybe when it gets warmer in Wisconsin he can get back outside again. He and my mother had an active routine of going for long walks. As my father's Alzheimers has progressed he seems to tire much more easily than he used to. My mother told me that even when they go to the mall to walk inside in the warmth he now often says, after only a short time, "I'm ready to go back home".

I've witnessed that on tough days when my teenage daughter struggles with kids making mean comments to her that she comes home at the end of the day and just wants to go to her room. I was struck the other day when she told me that some kid at her school called her a Mexican. I sometimes forget that she is one of only two Asian kids at her school. In this modern age with so many racially blended families, we are still dealing with pockets of prejudice against people who are different from us. It's tough enough to be a teenage girl with all the social pressures put on them by bullying and trying to fit in without the pressures of race. Sometimes she just gets tired and wants to go home. To her room surrounded by the things she knows to get her bearings.

As I was driving the other day I was deeply focused on a problem from work. Not the best thing to be doing while driving. Suddenly I looked up and was lost for a moment not knowing where I was. I began to panic a little. I quickly got my bearings and moved on but I was keenly aware of how fragile my control is over my sense of reality. My father is watching his world disappear and he struggles to keep his bearings. My daughter is moving from childhood into her teenage years and is struggling to keep her bearings. When I am overwhelmed by problems with work and family life and I struggle to keep my bearings.

In this turbulent time it seems no matter what our age, we are all struggling with getting our bearings.

Moonlighting

2012-01-20T11:25:00.002-06:00

I haven't posted in this blog in almost 2 years. Part of that was a self imposed exile because of too many things going on in life to try to keep the blog going. In other ways I was also finding that I imposed a certain restriction on myself to not make any statements about faith or my observations on life because they might be misinterpreted while I served on certain boards or were engaged in certain civic projects. I've missed writing and feel like I'm ready to start poking my head back up, looking around, and trying to sort through the things I see in life, work, and faith by putting them into a written form. I know that a couple of my friends have been after me to get back into the writing mode. Thanks for the encouragement and I'll be posting again soon.

Michael

final episode

2010-02-08T08:04:00.004-06:00

I haven't written in over a month. Since Christmas I have been overtaken with several projects. I've also been absorbed in watching something that I received as a Christmas present and last night I finished the final episode.

I happened to hear the interview over a year ago about the final episode of Battlestar Galactica and it sounded intriguing. I purchased the first few episodes on itunes and then got hooked. For Christmas I received the entire series in a box set. 26 discs in total.

As I have watched these episodes unfold it was like reading a book. Each episode was a continuing chapter in the story of the human race and its struggle to survive and understand what it means to be human. You need to forget all about the old 1970's series that this one used as a basis. This is also nothing like the old Star Trek series or others like it with a weekly episode that wrapped up neatly. This series is about the nature of God, man and machine. This series also came along at a time when I wasn't directing a show so that was how I spent most of my evenings the past month and a half.

I am so appreciative of the creative team that put the series together. Their writing and their probing really touched a nerve in me. So as I move on beyond this series that has absorbed my life in approximately the same time that it takes to rehearse and perform a play I find myself asking the question of what to take with me as a part of who I am. Each play that I work on always enriches my life. Not just the collaboration that happens with the people but the story of the play itself becomes incorporated in my consciousness. I often think about how much of our life is made up of the stories that we read or that we view that were created by a writer or storyteller. I know that parables, plays, movies, books, all can transport me to a place where I can look not only at the culture and the world but at myself.

The final episode of the series talks about how things keep repeating themselves over and over and yet there is hope that at some point there is the chance that things will turn out differently. We as humans won't continue down the path of self destruction. Our science and our technology far outpace our heart and our ability to make sense of it all. But even with incredible technological feats what we all reduce down to is the need to be loved and the need to connect with others. The series didn't answer all the questions it raised. Some characters never reveal to us who they are or what they are. We are left with only small glimpses of what is the truth and if we are honest with ourselves what we have told ourselves is the truth.

This past several weeks I've watched as friends have passes away, long time friends health slowly slips away, a new year begins and all the challenges it brings with it. I've watched as people in the series and in my life have seen all of their hopes and dreams turn out to be a false illusion and have to turn around and pick themselves back up again and set out again on a new path. Family members have come home to care for others and then had to leave to begin life again on their own. I've seen people who refused to give up and others who refuse to get up. I've seen people who have carried the burden of so many for so long fall down and only want to have peace, yet when duty called they stood back up, picked up the load again and set out a new course.

I used to scour every book I could get my hands on hoping to find the ultimate answer that would make sense of it all and I would live happily ever after. Lately it is the stories of others and not the philosophy or the theology books that seem to carry the most meaning. Each moment, each story of our life and the lives of others seems to hold that ultimate answer if only we can puzzle it out.

We get so caught up in the demands and the distractions of our lives that we forget the story that we are a part of unfolding with our every breath. That life is a constant discovery and a journey to an unknown place.

One of the characters in final episode said that after a lifetime of fighting and struggling and pain and heartache all he wanted told himself that he wanted to do was to find a quiet place and do as little as he possibly could and just enjoy the life. Yet as he looked around, after all he had been through, he found that his heart was calling him to climb mountains and to explore the oceans. The final episode is always the beginning of a new chapter in another story. A new story of creation that is as old as the beginning of time and continues for eternity.

Year of Stories

2010-01-02T19:46:00.002-06:00

I got up this morning and flipped on the news. They were discussing New Years Resolutions. I flipped the channel over to HBO and they had the Bucket List on. Okay two things that are trying to tell me to make a resolution on what I want to change or things I would like to accomplish in the new year. That's a tough question. There are lots of little things that I can always name easily that I would like. Lose weight. More time to write. More time period for the things that I love to do. Spending time with family and friends. But after watching the Bucket List I took a moment to try to figure out some bigger goals. That's a tough one.

I know that during Spring Break we will go to Disney World for Jade's first time ever. She is really looking forward to that. I had one of my biggest goals two years ago when I went to New York and saw shows on Broadway for the first time ever. When I was in school I always thought I would travel the world. Adopting my daughter allowed me to see China including Beijing, Hong Kong, and a layover in Tokyo. Traveling doesn't' seem to be a realistic goal at the moment. Financially everything is pretty tight. One of my goals I've had for several years now is to end the year with less debt than I started it. I was able to achieve some of that but life didn't really cooperate towards the end of the year with having to repair and replace a couple of big ticket items like plumbing systems, appliances and automobiles.

As I thought back over what I went through in 2009 I thought about how the year began with my father in the hospital as 2008 ended and my worries about his health. The ice storm took most of my focus for two months in January and February. I was pretty stressed both mentally and physically and in February ended up spending a night in the hospital because of a pain in my chest. Then I helped judge the local competition for America's Got Talent and helped select Kevin Skinner. I went right from that into The Wizard of Oz and that kept me busy until the July. We had Jade do some testing to see if we could help her with her school work and that took sometime to work through and we are just now able to make a plan to help her. A short summer vacation back to see my family and then back to work on Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming and Tom Dick and Harry. Through all that my shoulder has been keeping me in and out of the doctors office and I finally got a procedure scheduled for next Monday. In the meantime I strained my left shoulder and elbow trying to compensate for my right injured shoulder. I didn't start out with any new years resolutions in 2009 and lots of things happened.

Maybe it's best if I don't start out with any resolutions in 2010. What I think about is that most of life takes place in the stories about what happens to us while we are doing the everyday things. For me last years stories were about family, weather, work, money and trying to stay healthy. I have a feeling that many of the stories that will come in 2010 will be about the very same things. I feel very fortunate that I get to work in a career that tells stories. Many of my personal stories last year and the stories that I helped bring to life in the theatre helped to give a way to appreciate what life means. After 4 years of Education for Ministry class the one thing I learned was that we are still experiencing the same basic stories that were written thousands of years ago. While the details may be different the themes are the same. The search for love, for respect, for meaning are still just as consuming now as they were then. As we take in a story about someone else we realize, how much more alike we are than how different. The stories that inspire me are how we pick ourselves up and start again after we get knocked down. How we learn how to smile and sometimes even to share a laugh in the midst of pain. How we learn how to find love by giving it away when it hurts to give it with no expectation that it will be returned. And how we learned what it meant to be a friend, a father, a husband, a brother and a son and not talk but listen to the stories that someone else needs to tell.

A year from now I hope that when and if I'm able to sit down and think about resolutions for 2011 that I will have lots of new stories to tell.

The birth of light and tolerance at a time when we need it more than ever

2009-12-20T22:34:00.006-06:00

I was talking with a friend and we were discussing a prayer that was said at a school function. I am keenly aware of those who want to strongly voice their faith in schools and other settings as a political act. I feel sorry for them. They are always getting worked up by those who speak on a regular basis on the talk radio airwaves-those defenders of the faith. These defenders always want to put the world into two warring camps.

On one side is a group of people who wants to make a cause of saying Merry Christmas to rally around the bible and fight what they see as an evil that is spreading among business and individuals- the dreaded saying "Happy Holidays". On the other side is a business community and a group that recognizes that there are more and more people each year who are not Christians. The Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and many other people of faith who live and work in our community every day. I read on my Google home page the hype about the war over Christmas and the people who actually keep a tally of what businesses and individuals are using the phrase happy holidays instead of Christmas.

The other day as I greeted a Jewish friend of mine I said Happy Hanukkah to him and he responded Merry Christmas to me. It seems to me that most people of faith would greet each other in a respectful manner. I am not Jewish and he was not Christian. Yet we both smiled and wished each other happiness and joy of the season. I would appreciate non-Christians greeting me with a wish for a happy Hanukkah or Passover, a greeting during the month of Ramadan would also be welcome. I believe there is a cancer that is growing among certain parts of the faith community. This cancer is the certainty that they alone have the truth and must proclaim it in a way that tries to assert their truth above all other truths. That we should all live under one state sponsored religion. There are several books written about the people who came to our shores and founded this country on the right to practice their faith in their own way. The freedom of religion. Of course if you read just a little later in our countries history you see that they too were just as intolerant of others faith and beliefs as the the countries that they fled from. Several colonies tried to establish a "state religion". It was only a few individuals who saw that a true democracy allowed everyone to pray to their creators in a way that suited them. That also gave the freedom for some not to pray at all.

So this Christmas I will celebrate the birth of a Jewish child. A child that grew up in a faith tradition that revered Abraham as the founder. An Abraham that founded Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. A Jewish child that stood up against those in his own faith who said that you must follow strict rules of obedience as set forth by the high priests and ministers of the faith. This holiday season I celebrate the birth of a light in the world that fought against bigotry, intolerance, and injustice, and not just against those in the ruling empire whose will was carried out by armed soldiers or tax collectors, but also against those of his own faith who would tear down others for daring to believe that they too could have a personal faith.

So I say Merry Christmas and to my friends of other faiths I hope that you will express their joyous expressions of your individual faiths right back to me. I've been listening to the musical "Rent" lately and the song 525,600 minutes runs through my mind as I think back over the moments that measure this past year. In most of those minutes this past year I hope that I have tried to listen instead of talk, tried to encourage instead of reject, and tried to love even when it was much easier to be angry or even hate. How do you measure the the moments of a life?

making a two cent donation

2009-12-06T21:52:00.003-06:00

It's been a wild and crazy month for me since I last posted. Everything has been focused on work so I've been feeling a little overwhelmed. I had an experience a week ago that has been on my mind since it happened. I was presented with a situation in that I was ushering for my church a week ago. As part of the ushers duty you walk up to the front of the church with a collection plate and then walk slowly to the back as people put their contributions in the plate. The aisle that I was on had a small number of people in it. As I walked from the front to the back not a single person put anything in the plate. I reached the back and the plate was empty. I thought about it for a second and realized I could not turn that plate in with nothing. I got out my wallet and looked inside. I realized all I had was 3 one dollar bills. I took those bills and put them in the plate.

Now I'm fairly certain that the people who did not put something in the offering plate that day probably write a check and contribute like I do on a monthly or quarterly basis. But I don't know that for sure. Now the thing that made me stop and think was wondering what it looked like to someone who came to Grace Church for the first time. Sitting there noticing that most of the people they see don't put something in the offering plate. What does it look like to my own child who generally doesn't see me put anything in that plate. Does she know that I contribute on a regular basis to help support something I care about. When I was a kid my parents always gave me something to put in the collection plate. It was a way of teaching me that it is important to give, and to be thankful for what I've been given. It wasn't until later I learned that they also sent a monthly check to support the church.

When I'm out shopping with my daughter at Christmas, I always give her money to put in the salvation army kettle. Even if I've already given that day, I'll try to always put something in almost every kettle I pass. Even if its just a little bit of pocket change. Why do I do that? As I thought about it, I discovered it is important to me that the people who volunteer their time, especially kids who volunteer their time to go ring those bells understand that I appreciate their efforts to make our community a better place. We have a shared responsibility. I also recognize that I can't give to everyone who asks me. I wish I could be my family has limited resources. Making a donation to feed the hungry, give shelter to the homeless, and clothe the needy is something that we are called by our faith and as citizens to do. I support education and the arts as well because I think it is just as important to give knowledge to the mind and give nourishment to a person's soul through music, theatre, and dance.

As I reflected back on that empty offering plate I knew that I couldn't let it go up empty even though I had already given that month. It is important for people to "see" people giving. Working for a non-profit we always recognize our donors with a thank you and by posting their names in our program. But what about places like churches and salvation army kettles where your name isn't posted. Last weekend it became important to me not how much you give but that people can see that you give. You are making a statement of what is important to you.

So I've made my new years resolution early. When the collection plate or the salvation army kettle appears, even if I've already written a check and got my tax deductible donation recorded, I will put in something every time I can. It may be just a few pennies or a single dollar, but it will be something. I want to teach my daughter to extend her hand in a way that sets an example and encourages others to give no matter what the amount. Besides if everyone gave even just a little bit here and a little bit there it adds up. So that's my 2 cents to contribute.

Indian Summer

2009-11-14T20:33:00.004-06:00

I just finished 2 1/2 hours of screaming, kicking, whining, banging and crying otherwise known as Jade's Social Studies homework. April told me it was my turn to experience the joy of Jade's homework since I didn't have to work tonight. Thank you April for the lovely gift. Jade has two tests to study for this weekend and a science project. I'm guessing since I'm home all weekend I'll get that joy as well. I found that my patience was wearing thin until I realized that I could outlast her. No matter what she said or did I wasn't going to let her win. Of course April handed me this gift and then proceeded to have her own issues with information that she needed from me for an article she was writing for work. Ahh such a peaceful weekend...

I got irritated with AT&T on Thursday when I got my bill. I had tried 2 months ago to cancel my land line phone service. The nice customer service person told me that I had been paying lots of things at an old price that I could get a much better deal now. She said that if I kept my basic line with no frills it would only cost me $3 a month more than my DSL. I got the bill, and yes it was only $3 more than my old DSL price. However the taxes and additional fees for each minute that was used when someone called me was the final straw. I called Friday and cancelled the line. Now I have to figure out who calls me that is important that only has my old telephone number. The plus side is that I won't be getting anymore of those telemarketing calls anymore. The downs side is that after I took the phone off the wall in our kitchen I was left with an ugly face plate in which my DSL connection is plugged into. April hated the look and demanded I put a phone back on the wall to cover the plate. I found an old black wall phone and put it on the wall. It seems odd to me to have a wall phone that doesn't work just for looks. I'm a real function first kind of person. April looked at it and then wanted a white phone to match the decor. I'm trying to come up with a slim white phone that doesn't work to hang on the wall to cover a silver phone plate outlet.

I called my folks on my cell phone this afternoon. Talked with my father for awhile. My mother has been encouraging him to go and rake the neighbors yard. The neighbor across the street is in his 70's and just had knee surgery. My father who rakes his yard daily now and often the neighbors on either side of him finally was convinced to go and help the neighbor. He bagged and raked all the leaves up. The neighbor was very grateful. My father is 78 and has become the neighbor who is now the yard police. If someone doesn't rake their leaves or the grass isn't cut in a timely manner he can't stand it. He will keep making comments until he will walk down the street with his lawn mower and mow their yard or rake their leaves. He is the guy who rakes the gutters in the street to make sure the water doesn't back up on its way to the storm drain. When I was growing up the neighborhood kids used to make fun of an older man who was just like that. Now I tell my mother that as long as the neighbors don't mind let him do it. If it makes him happy. I told her they can come visit me anytime and do my yard. Now that my father can no longer drive because of his Alzheimer's he prowls around the house constantly looking for things to do. Occasionally my mother will make up and excuse to go to Lowes or Menards just so he can prowl the hardware aisles. I keep trying to think of a way he could volunteer someplace. But his deafness and his disease means that he needs consistent supervision or he will get distracted and confused. He is as strong as an ox and is outside every day that the weather will allow. My grandmother, his mother, lived to be 97. My father and I talked about veterans day and his time in the national guard as tank driver. He regaled me with his shooting ability as a gunner. Then I asked him about his jobs after he left the Alabama national guard. I got him to laughing and talking. He sits quiet a lot of the time. I've made it a point to talk to him about things in his youth and early adulthood. Not about what happened yesterday. He was always a big sports fan but now he can't remember who the players are and what the standings are.

Thinking is such a major part of my life. Reading, discerning, trying to reason things out. I often worry about the disease in my future and wonder if I will be able to cope with if it is in my dna. Sometimes I wonder if I knew that the disease was going to affect me and I only had so many years left of clarity would I do something different. It is that old riddle. If you knew the day you were going to die would you change the way you live your life. My first play I wrote was about a man who wished that he could just walk away from all his troubles. In the play he got his wish or so he thought. As soon as he was free he went racing back to set everything back to the way it was. In the end it was only an illusion that a stranger had given him to see that even though he said he wanted to walk away he really didn't.

Each fall I think back over the years. Fall is always my favorite season. I'm always carried back to my college days. Crisp fall weekends in my freshman year of college. Walking across the campus on cool Wisconsin nights and warm days. Indian summer had arrived. A movie I remember watching was about a machine that could record your brain waves and recreate experiences. As the person was dying they connected the machine and it recorded all of their life moments as they passed before them. I know that one of my moments will be that Indian Summer of 1975 walking across the campus and looking at the leaves. It's hard to believe that was almost 35 years ago. If I close my eyes I can almost touch it once again.

This afternoon as I sat on my patio looking at trees and talking with my father about his youth I was touched by my own. I believe that it is possible to travel through time if we could only shift our brain waves just a little bit and step through the hole that is created. I wouldn't mind living that first year of college again. That was the year I began my career in theatre, I met April, I moved out on my own, my only transportation was a motorcycle, and I played guitar in band, I would stay up all night drinking wine and discussing love, politics and religion. That was a good year. Thanks Dad for helping me remember.

Disappointment

2009-11-05T14:21:00.003-06:00

I have been going over lots of details lately about mission statements. The theatre had a short discussion about ours at the last board meeting. The church board meeting had a change to its mission statement proposed as well. It seems like lots of groups are looking at their missions. One of the articles I read in Fast Company magazine was about creating a mission statement that wasn't just a bunch of big words without any concrete meaning. It used an example of a big goal. I've been cursed with a brain that continues to work on things like mission statements in the background while I work on other projects.

I saw a video yesterday from Peoria arts groups that really moved me and then a video that was linked on the theatre communications group site about stage lighting technicians at the Santa Fe Opera. Both videos really caught my attention as they spoke to what's going on with the arts all over the country.

April and I got into a discussion yesterday about the insanity of the political parties in this country. April would like to throw them all out and start over. Throw out the Democrats and the Republicans. I wonder what the mission statement for a new political party would be. I've pretty much stopped watching cable news shows, which is a major feat for me because I was a political junkie. I craved all the news I could get. Now the need to fill 24 hours a day with analysis of 2 sentences of something someone said that wouldn't have even been considered news 15 years ago really drives me crazy. I'm just afraid that the more political parties that come into power will become more of a fractured government like they have in Jerusalem. Three or four conservative parties and three or four liberal parties who all have to broker deals to get a majority to make a ruling coalition. The mission statement for those parties is to block everything that the opposition wants.

My other pet peeve today- I seem to be on a pet peeve rant today- is the latest stuff about Holiday Trees and Christmas Trees. When did Christians get so narrow minded that everything has to be called Christian. The latest nonsense is about the state tree. I say lets have Christmas Trees, and Menorah's, and Muslim Crescents and every kind of religious symbol all represented in our schools and our government buildings and in the celebration of every season. I'm willing to be that if everything were allowed the group that is complaining the loudest about the word holiday would complain about something else. Of course the atheists will be offended if any religious symbols are used. Fox News and CNN will send out crews to cover the controversy hoping that it will stir up people to watch their newscasts and then all the radio talk shows and TV commentators will go nuts and then the politicians will get involved, etc... My mission statement for the year is to block out all the noise and nonsense and pay attention to important things.... like NFL football... Maybe my attitude just comes from being a Chicago Cubs fan. We're used to disappointment. There's always next season.

Question

2009-10-19T12:20:00.003-05:00

I saw parts of several films on television this weekend. It could be just me but, has our culture moved to a place where mankind can no longer solve the problems we face. Almost every movie had some kind of supernatural force, super hero with incredible powers or a destiny that was written from God. Only those things can save the world. Have we really reached that point?

The modern plague

2009-10-17T14:09:00.006-05:00

I caught the last part of a movie on TV this morning. It was the movie I am Legend with Will Smith. This was a movie I saw at Cinemark a couple of years ago. The images in it are powerful. I sat thinking about this film after I turned off the television and I began to wonder about the stories that become part of us.

With so much craziness in the world I can't help but ask the question about what types of stories we are incorporating into our lives. The film and video gaming world are full of stories about death and destruction. We look for superheros to come and save us from ourselves. Everywhere you turn there is some television program with horrific violence as part of the norm. The television news shows are full of people who abduct children and indiscriminate violence by young teenagers against other teenagers, drug cartels killing on a daily basis in Mexico, suicide bombers, war being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The news programs are full of families all wanting to get their 15 minutes of fame television time on the Today Show, Good Morning America or Larry King. The news channels have become news commentary channels with people of various backgrounds all telling us how the liberals or conservatives are all destroying our country. The newspapers now don't even bother trying to be balanced with their editorials and often the news sources they use to tell stories. Politicians and business people don't want anything done that might take away the profits from business. Even if their business is slowly killing the people or the environment of our planet.

As I watch all this I can't help but think about the stories that we are filling our hearts and souls with. Every television program we watch, every movie, every book, every play or piece of music that we take in becomes part of us in some way. I have been moved to action by reading stories in books which have inspired me to become a better person. I have watched films and plays of stories that make me stop and think about what I'm doing with my life and recognize the presence of God in other human beings.

So much of what I see today seems to be stories about how we kill each other. How we have to fight against everyone else to make sure that they don't take a single crumb from our table. We are creating stories that are destroying ourselves from the inside out. I know that you can play a violent video game and then not go out into the street to shoot someone. But if you incorporate that violence into your core then you become immune to stopping the violence that is around you. If you watch television shows or listen to radio programs that tear down your political opponents every day then you stop being willing to listen to people with other points of view. In the latest play on Broadway two couples get together to talk about their children fighting. It soon is revealed that one of the parents believes that you have to fight for everything in life. If you don't fight others they will walk all over you and you will have nothing. Our culture considers it a failure if someone else wins and you don't.

It is painful to stand idly by and watch us destroy ourselves. In I am Legend what was supposed to be a miracle drug to cure cancer turned into a plague that destroyed mankind. I sometimes wonder if our 24 hour news cycles, and violent video games, and films glorifying violence and destruction, and political commentary, and YouTube, and aren't doing the same thing to us. We will fight to the death, anyone who tries to take away, the right we have to destroy ourselves.

I'm just grateful I'm working on a comedy at the moment about a couple adopting a baby or I would go insane..

An emotional experience

2009-09-27T20:55:00.002-05:00

I haven't written in a while because of the heavy workload I've had this past month and the fact that I try not to write when I don't have anything to say. Sometimes I get worked up about something but I always remember the advice of Anne Lamont that said never write an email after 10pm. Most of the time I don't get in from work until after 10 pm and I've taken that advice to heart.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been working on the script for the Ghost Tour and struggling with casting shows and trying to work through some of the arts marketing books I've been reading. Last night I went to the wedding of a young man I watched grow up in the theatre. The setting was a beautiful lakeside spot with a green vine arbor and over 200 people who all attended to celebrate the beginning of two people who were coming together to face the future. April couldn't make it and I went by myself. I didn't know most of the people there and was fortunate to find a friend from the theatre who also didn't know a lot of people there, and we looked on as this young man that we had watched grow up, began a new life journey. I left feeling a lot of emotions. A sense of joy at the marriage of this young man, a sense that my presence there was important to him and his family, and a sense of friendship with the person I enjoyed the event with.

I came home and tired to finish the arts marketing book I was reading. I've been struggling with how to make the theatre a place that is successful and has value to the people who perform on stage and the people who sit in the audience I find similar questions in relation to the church service I attended this morning.

I'm on the vestry (the board of directors) of Grace Episcopal Church and this morning I really didn't want to go to church. It's been a long week. The thought of just kicking back this morning was really appealing. I had to work this afternoon with the tech rehearsal for the Secret Life of Girls which opens Thursday. I really craved some time to do nothing. To have no responsibilities. Then the responsible voice in my head said "you are on the vestry. If you don't make the effort why should anyone else." April didn't quite have the same nagging thought that I did so she did take the morning off. However I made Jade go with me since Sunday School started last week and I felt it was important that Jade go because she was my daughter.

We arrived at church this morning for a breakfast put on by the men of the church to celebrate the start of Sunday School. I looked around and there were only a handful of children. Jade whined as I made her go with me this morning, that she was going to be the only kid in her Sunday School class. As we sat there eating breakfast she looked around and said "I told you dad I was going to be the only one." Fortunately for me, a new family came to church this morning with a young boy who went to class with Jade so she wasn't the only one.

I sat there during the service and looked around and saw quite a few empty pews. It really got me to thinking about some of the challenges facing the organizations and churches today.

People are so busy today that they are more likely to look for reasons to not go to something than to find a reason to go. I had a lot of reasons why I could have skipped he wedding last night but in the end I was really glad I went. Why are some churches thriving and others slowly withering. Why are some arts organizations flourishing and others on the verge of collapse. One of the arts books I've read recently says that the only way to success is to boldly set out a course that makes people get excited about your programming. You have to do something that excites people and do it at a high level of quality. It has to engage people and they feel that there presence at the events is something that leaves them feeling invigorated when they leave and glad that they came.

As I sat in church this morning I knew that the teacher who prepared the class for my daughter Jade did so not knowing if she would have none or several children. The choir prepared a beautiful anthem to be sung during the offertory. The deacon did a rousing sermon that challenged me to think. The priest did a good job of creating a service that offered points of reflection and points of action for each person attending. The readers read the scripture well. The teachers who taught the Adult Sunday school classes prepared and did a good job with the material they presented.

But I couldn't help thinking... does it make a difference if I'm here or not? Am I excited and looking forward to returning next week. Or do I do this out of a sense of responsibility? Episcopalians have a tendency to be very intellectual in their worship. The music is pretty to listen to. The readings and sermons are thought provoking.

But what is my part in this process. Is it to sit passively and reflect as an individual and then go my merry way. Except for the exchanging the peace this morning I could have left with really no interaction with others in the church service. I find myself a passive observer to the service. With so many things going on in life, things have to make me passionate about them to keep me interested and involved.

It is this sense of sharing an emotional experience with those around me that makes seeing a great play an experience that I find riveting. There is a sense of something truly exciting happening in live theatre that we experience right along with the characters of a play. When they are devastated we are devastated. When they are vindicated we feel vindication. When they reach out from a state of vulnerability we are right there with them. When I stand at the wedding of a friend I feel their happiness and I feel their joy. I feel a friendship with others who are witnessing with me this special moment.

In some ways I think those churches that seem to succeed today understand this need to have an emotional experience. As I walked out of church this morning I reflected on my emotional experience this morning... To be honest the emotion I most felt was feeling bad for the people who put in so much effort for such a small turnout. If the church doesn't start finding ways to create an emotional experience within the people who attend I'm afraid that it will slowly wither and become a place of only older members who attend out of a sense of responsibility.

Animal plotting

2009-08-30T22:33:00.004-05:00

Okay so I put the cat out last week and haven't let her back in. Our cat Maggie has been part of our family for over 15 years. One day she walked up to our house when she was only a year old and decided to make it her home. We had just had to put to sleep our Lhasa apsa (sp?) dog who was 16 years old and Maggie (named after Cat on a Hot Tin roof) filled an emptiness for us. Having had previous cats who lived outside and contracted all sorts of awful diseases we decided that Maggie would be an indoor cat. She remained that for probably 8 years. Until we sold our old house and move to our new home. Unfortunately April didn't want the cat to come with us. I tried to find a new home for the cat but when I couldn't Maggie came along with us. April decided that the cat would no longer have free roam over our home and she was to reside in my study. This lasted for a short time until I grew weary of my study always smelling like a cat and cat hair on all of my papers and books. Maggie's favorite spot to sleep was on the papers on my desk. It was at that point that I put her out during the day times and let her back in at night. A year ago we adopted a yellow lab from a shelter. With Goldie's addition things became a little more tense. But I thought all the animals had settled down.

Last week I came home 3 nights in a row to find that the cat had ignored her litter box consistently and was using various corners in my study. At this point it was time for her to become a total outdoor cat. I put her food and water outside in a location easy to access and began the difficult ordeal of not allowing the cat back in. For the past week Maggie has been appearing on the ledge of every window and door at ground level. Reminding me of what an awfully mean person I am to put her out. Of course April who didn't want the cat is suddenly concerned about the cat and wanting to know what I'm going to do about it. I'm reminded of a monologue in Smoke on the Mountain where the wife tells the husband he's going to kill himself and he's a dammed fool for trying to walk to town during an ice storm and then in the next breath tells him to "hurry up and get going!"

On Saturday night I let the dog out about 10:30 in the back yard and discovered that a large owl was making a nest in the big tree right behind our patio. This was discovered when the owl, about 20 feet from me, screeched at me nearly causing heart failure while I was standing in the dark of the back yard thinking about the cat. I suddenly had visions of the cat being snatched by the owl for lunch and my wife and daughter blaming me for Maggie's demise!

Our dog of course has added to my animal stress by barking from her crate starting between 5 -6 am each morning. Although I get up at 6 am I really do like that last hour of sleep before 6 am.

I'm beginning to think the animals are plotting behind my back. First the cat plotting how to get back in, then the owl plotting to swoop down on me, and now the dog denying me my sleep! One of our friends has started raising chickens in his backyard in the city. I was informed that he has been reading back yard poultry magazine for sometime before he bought a dozen baby chicks that he plans on raising. (Who knew there was such a thing as Back Yard Poultry!) Jade has been begging for weeks to get a duck! I don't think right now I could take another animal on. I still remember the Chaos theory as expressed in Jurassic Park- "Nature always finds a way to overcome any plans made by humans." I just know there is a wild bunny out there plotting my demise at this very moment!

writing

2009-08-23T22:47:00.004-05:00

I've been trying to write for a couple of weeks now. I write most mornings in my journal about the things in life that seem to pop up and command my attention. The effort to sit down and start to write something like a play or a piece of poetry or fiction seems to escape me for the moment. This afternoon I sat down and read through about a dozen legends and stories from the Paducah area to try to fashion them into a Ghost Tour as a fundraiser for the theatre. As I read the many accounts I couldn't help think about all of the people who have lived and died in the very buildings that I work in and walk by everyday. People who spent their whole lives getting up in the morning and going to work or raising a family and being part of the community. Some were famous around the world because they cured diseases and others wrote books or performed on Broadway or in film. However most of the people who are the subject of ghost stories are everyday people. They ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some locked themselves away from the rest of the community and became recluses. The kind of people that kids would run up and knock on the door and then run away because they were dared by someone else.

I walk the bookstores (Hi, my name is Michael and I'm a bookaholic.) Thousands and thousands of books line the walls that people have spent years writing and most will be put on the discount table within a year. I walked through a video store the other day and saw row upon row of movies that were all discounted. I'm reminded of the story of Jim Henson and the production team that made the movie the Dark Crystal. After spending almost four years of their life on the film they went to the premiere and afterwards they all sighed and then someone said "Well what shall we do for dinner?" Producing a play is kind of like that. You spend weeks and weeks working on something and then it opens and life is at its peak and then it closes and the next show goes into rehearsal.

I talked with my mother today and she told me that my father is talking less and less. His illness is slowly turning him inward. The question that came to mind, was about who a person is. If you don't remember your family and your friends, you don't know the people around you and you live in a world that seems strange and frightening who are you? My wife told me about a book she just read that a woman who was losing her memory had a list of questions that she had to answer each day, who her children were? Who she was married to? Etc... The day she didn't know the answer to the questions she was instructed to open an envelope and to follow the instructions written on the paper. The instructions told her take all of the pills in a certain bottle. She had made her own suicide plan. However she couldn't remember to follow the instructions after she put the paper down. This person was still capable of feeling and being loved by others but was incapable of knowing who she was. With people with memory lose, who will remember their stories years from now?

I worked on a will this weekend with one of these computer programs that you buy. It talks about leaving assets and estate planning. I have a trunk full of my journals that I have written over my life time. There are lots of things in those journals that I would like my daughter to know- The first time I fell in love. The first time I held my daughter in my arms. The things that scared me most as I went out into the world. The things that I dreamed about doing with my life. Yes, even the mistakes I made along the way that I would like for her to avoid. There are several things that she probably shouldn't know about her father. Who I am has been collected in the pages of those journals. I can't help but wish that my father had written his life down. Not to publish as a book for the world to read, but as a book for me to read. To know who he is when he can't tell me himself. For some of these stories that I've been reading today, the only reason that I know anything about these people is because someone remembered it by writing it down.

A friend of mine once joked that all good stories start out with -There once was a man who had two sons... My father had two sons. I was the oldest and left home as soon as I turned 18. Yesterday was my younger brothers birthday. He still lives in my hometown and works for the same company that my father retired from after 40 years of service. My parents were going over to his house to celebrate with his family. As usual I am hundreds of miles away. My father probably won't remember the occasion, and even though I wasn't there to celebrate with my brothers family and my parents, writing it down has helped me to remember it for him.

In sense maybe I am writing a book with my journals, a book that is important to me. If someday I happen to suffer from the same disease as my father, well maybe I'll have an interesting story to read about a father who had two sons, one of which moved away and had a daughter...

Uncle Ray

2009-08-08T17:04:00.003-05:00

I received news on Wednesday morning that my Uncle Ray had died the day before. The funeral would be on Friday morning and it would be in Michigan. I agonized over whether I could attend or not. It would be about 9 hours drive time one way. About 3 pm on Wednesday I told my mother in Wisconsin that I would be unable to go because of too many conflicts and the drive time. My fathers brother passed away last fall and I couldn't go. My mothers oldest sister passed away the week of the ice storm in January and I couldn't go. It kept rolling around in my head over the course of the next couple of hours that I was losing many of the people who helped form my life and that I wasn't able to be there to mark their passing and celebrate their lives. By the time I got home at 9:30 pm after rehearsal I called my folks back and told them I would be attending. As it turned out my sister who lives in Springfield was also going to go and was going to have drive by herself to the funeral. She was in Wisconsin on vacation when the news arrived and decided to drive back to Springfield with her family to drop them off, get funeral clothes and then drive to Michigan the next morning. She had to leave after the funeral to drive back to Springfield to be at work Sat. morning at 8 am. We arranged to carpool. I drove to Springfield IL on Thursday. We got up at 3 am and left about 4 am on Friday morning and arrived in Michigan at 8:30. The last time I saw my Uncle was over 10 years ago at my sisters wedding. Up until 3 weeks ago when I went on vacation, I hadn't even seen my sister in 5 years.

The city in Michigan is one that my mothers family has lived in all of my life. The last time I visited it was in 1977 for my Grandmothers funeral. I was in college at the time. I didn't know at that time it would be 32 years before I returned. I felt odd driving into the town. Some of the town looked almost the same. Lots of new things added here and there but still somewhat familiar. I've dreamed about that little town occasionally over the years and the picture that was in my head was what it looked like in the late 60's early 70's. I met the rest of my family who had driven over from Wisconsin in the church parking lot and we were the first to arrive at the church.

As my mother's family arrived for the funeral along with many of my cousins who I hadn't seen in 32 years it was a bit like trying to pick out faces of people who I knew as teenagers and were now in there late 40's and 50's. The funeral began at 11 am Eastern time followed by a graveside service and then a dinner back at the church. My sister and I left about 2:30 pm and arrived back in Springfield about 7 pm that night. I left Springfield this morning about 8 and got back to Paducah about 12:30.

My uncle was a man who lived life to the fullest. He was a Korean war veteran, used car dealer and a man who taught me that life was fun and yet he had a powerful sense of values that he passed on to others. He taught me to water ski, to ride motorcycles, to not be afraid to try something new and if it didn't go right to pick yourself up. Laugh and try it again. I remember sitting around the table with all of the aunts and uncles playing rook. There was an expression called shooting the moon which mean you would take all of the tricks in a hand. My uncle was known to shoot the moon more than anyone else who ever played. More times than not he ended up succeeding. Maybe there is a little of him in me that always looks at a challenge and says "What the hell, Let's shoot the moon and do it!" (That's how I agreed to do Wizard of Oz this past June.)

Thanks, Uncle Ray, for the many wonderful moments of my childhood that I will always cherish. Although I haven't seen him in almost 10 years before he died. I will miss him. I may not have physically been back to Berrien Springs, Michigan in 32 years, but there is a part of that little town that I will always carry with me whenever I look up at the moon.

Past Present and Future

2009-07-25T17:23:00.002-05:00

I'm curious. I've been thinking a lot about the past lately as I work out ideas for a new piece I'm writing. It occurred to me that a preoccupation with the past could also be because the future is uncertain.

At times in life I haven't give the past much thought. Most of the time when I have delved into the past it was because of something that went wrong. Some trauma or trouble that I was facing in life that seemed to have roots in the past. Then I turned my thoughts to excavating past actions, plans, and relationships to uncover where the trouble began and how I might go about "fixing" the problem. When everything was going well, my thoughts were always on the future. Where I wanted to be or what I hoped to accomplish. I didn't have time to think about the past.

When I visit with my father and he starts to look more frail with age I can't help but thinking about the past. About the times that we threw the football out in the backyard as I was trying out for the youth football league. Times when we went deer hunting in Northern Wisconsin or Pheasant hunting in South Dakota. I was just a kid but I remember the late night poker games for nickels and dimes in the northern Wisconsin cabin with two feet of snow outside the door. I remember the farmers daughter in South Dakota and sharing my writing with her about my dreams for what I wanted to accomplish. Playing pool in the local tavern with my brother drinking cokes on a Sunday afternoon while my dad sat at the bar and watched the football games with friends.

At the family retreat weekend that I attended last weekend, all of the adults sat under the front canopy of the inn and talked and kicked back. I spent some time there too but found myself dragged off by my daughter and her young friend who were bored. I finally said okay go ide and I'll count to 20 in a game of hide and seek. I felt a little silly counting to 20 out loud but I have enough theatre ego to let go of the adult and enjoy the "kid" in me as well. My daughter is very good at hiding and is almost never found. I'm wandering out calling to Jade to and Jamie to come out and thinking how much part of me wants to be sitting under that front canopy drinking a beer. But then I think about how my daughter will remember me when I'm almost 80 years old like my father. Will she remember this weekend retreat when we went out in the canoe, roasted marshmellows by the fire and we played hide and seek?

As we enter parts of our lives that seem somehow less promising because of age and physical agility will I think more about those days of my youth- my childhood, high school, or college days, or should I focus more about being where I am right now. I've reached an age where I've accomplished some things in life and yet I feel like there is more left I want to do. I think that we have moments of transition. I seem to be in one of those at the present. I'm reminded of the book Passages that I read many years ago. Part of me is still striving to accomplish certain things in life. Part of me wants to take more time to enjoy the simple pleasures that life brings. A warm summer afternoon with a slight breeze and a nap out on the patio. My daughter doesn't let me rest for long. She is in continual motion and I struggle between trying to teach her that I am not her "entertainment" when she is bored and yet doing something that makes memories she will turn to when I become my fathers age. As my father struggles with his Alzheimer's disease he seems to be lost sometimes. Just staring into space. He can tell me a story with exact detail of when he was a kid...or a story about when I was a kid and he and I did something, yet he can't remember that I came to visit him the day before.

I never thought about most of this stuff when I was younger. I was always focused on the future. But now it seems I'm caught between remembering the past and creating a future for myself and one that can be remembered by my daughter. Creating moments with my father that he won't remember but that I will. What will my daughter remember from the summer of 2009. Maybe playing hide and seek with her father on a cool summer night...

Rain

2009-07-21T11:56:00.005-05:00

Last night after rehearsal as I was locking up all the buildings something made me stop and look down the street, stop and listen for a moment. My instinct was to run from the building to my car. Something was telling me to wait. Not to run. I found myself thinking of all the other rainy nights in my life. Times I've walked blocks in the rain at night. There is something about the rain that makes my senses come alive. The way the light catches the water as it drips from the branches of the trees and the way every sound seemed to come alive with sound of drops in the puddles. It made me think of this email from a friend the other day.

..something to think about... A guy with a baseball cap, black sweat shirt and a violin.. Washington DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later:the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes:A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:A3 year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly, as the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced them to move on.

45 minutes:The musician played. Only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.He collected $32.

1 hour:He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be:If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ....How many other things are we missing?

Next time it rains... don't run to the car... stop and wait.

sore fingers

2009-07-21T08:28:00.002-05:00

Last night I got a beer and got out my mandolin and guitar to try to work through some of the music from the new musical I'm working on. At tonight's rehearsal I'm supposed to help teach some of the actors to play guitar and mandolin. I went online and found a wonderful mandolin site for tuning the mandolin. Then with my instruments in tune started to work my way through the songs. My fingers quickly reminded me how long it has been since I played the mandolin. The guitar was only mildly better. I remember as a teenager when I played all the time my fingers got so calloused I could stick a pin in the end without feeling it. Last night I felt every string press. I could at least get through a couple of songs before my fingers were too tender to play. Trying to play chords on the mandolin with its double strings was almost impossible except for the easiest chords. But as I sat there drinking my beer and playing I was reminded of the countless hours I spent alone and with a band playing.

I've got several projects I'm working on at the moment and adding playing the guitar and mandolin to those projects while tempting isn't realistic. I'm at one of those moments in life when I have lots of ideas and wants and need to focus on just one or two. I've been writing a lot lately. How much do you draw from your own life without exposing whether good or bad those who have shared parts of it. I'm a strong believer that ever writer starts at a point that is within them and then transforms it when it moves into written form. I'm caught between wanting to write a play and write a story. I've spent my life in theatre which tends to draw me toward the immediate. The action part of the story. Long descriptive passages I love to read but can't seem to write without getting lost in the description. I remember a passage from Anne Lamont who said that most writers first drafts get burned because if anyone from the outside ever saw them they would think the writer had totally lost all of their talents. My draft are no exception. When I journal I write a stream of consciousness without any editing. When writing I do a certain amount of that but cut out the extra stuff that is irrelevant to the story.

Tonight is rehearsal and we'll see how much my fingers can remember. The beer will have to wait until after rehearsal.

Secrets in the Dark

2009-07-11T17:59:00.003-05:00

I'm in the midst of reading a new book by Frederick Buechner called Secrets in the Dark, -A life in sermons. I discovered Buechner's writing while reading Soul Survivor by Phillip Yancey. Buechner is a living writer who writes in style about the little things in life but doesn't pull any punches. It is not theological writing for the timid. The book is a collection of his sermons. Each morning I read a couple of the sermons and they are always thought provoking and challenging personally.

This morning I read a sermon about being called. Buechner used the Isaiah 6: 1-9 (which was also the scripture assigned for the day I presented my sermon on the occasion of the graduating class from Education for Ministry.) Buechner makes the point that we have so many voices calling us to action that it is hard to decide sometimes what is the voice to listen to. When we are young we tend to be idealistic and we are called to a vocation to do the things in life that give us the most pleasure. We can be seduced by other voices which call us to success and to wealth. We can be seduced by many of the other things in life as well. He tells of playing a sad and dangerous little game when we reach a certain age. It is a form of solitaire. It really struck a chord with me because when I was on vacation, visiting my parents in my home town, I played a form of this game. I went to my high school class website and looked up many of my old classmates. I remembered them and myself in high school and thought about the great things that we wanted to accomplish. I thought of some of the people who I had known since the first grade. Many of them did not have a profile so I wondered how their lives turned out. I found profiles of some friends who seem to have lived a pretty good life- children, even grandchildren. Many of them were employed in regular occupations. There were a couple of my old classmates who seemed to so full of life and promise back then- I was certain they would be high power lawyers, or successful business people. I was somewhat shocked to read a couple bios listing their vocation as drinking. I hope they were joking but I couldn't tell. (Not that I'm against drinking. I love a cold beer or a good bottle of wine. It's just not my vocation.)I looked at the faces of those who had posted photos and tried to remember them as they were.

I couldn't help but think about all those plans we talked about when we ended that Senior year. They had such gifts when I remember them. Yet like Buechner, I couldn't help but think that some of them had spent their life in vocations that didn't call for many of those gifts. As I thought about my own life I felt that I had been given a gift. I've spent most of my life engaged in what I set out to do that final year in high school. To create theatre and to do the things that call on the talents that I treasured back then. It gave me great gladness to do what I loved to do. And yet the thing that has sustained me all these years is that for the most part I didn't do it for myself. I found out years ago that I was being called to bring that gift out of others. I didn't plan to be in community theatre. I planned a solo career. But the call to go where others needed me has allowed me to continue to use my talents and to increase them. I wasn't called to feed the hungry or to heal the sick. I was called to bring joy in peoples lives through story and art. For that I am grateful to God for the richness of my life.

Buechner finishes the sermon with a prayer:

Oh thou, who art the God no less of those who know thee not than of those who love thee well, be present with us at the times of choosing when time stands still and all that lies behind and all that lies ahead are caught up in the mystery of a moment. Be present especially with the young who must choose between many voices. Help them to know how much an old world needs their youth and gladness. Help them to know that there are words of truth and healing that will never be spoken unless they speak them, and deeds of compassion and courage that will never be done unless they do them. Help them never to mistake success for victory and failure for defeat. Grant that they may never be entirely content with whatever bounty the world may bestow upon them, but that they may know at last that they were created not for happiness but for joy, and that joy is to them alone who, sometimes with tears in their eyes, commit themselves in love to thee and to others. Lead them and all the world ever deeper into the knowledge that finally all people are one and that there can never really be joy for any until there is joy for all. In Christ's name we ask it and for his sake. Amen.

Perfection

2009-06-26T16:08:00.004-05:00

I listened with interest to a recording of Donna Summer talking about Michael Jackson. She called him a legend and a great performer but she also talked about his quest for perfection. A statement was made that Jackson's success was because of his unending quest for perfection. He would rehearse for hours on end and spend endless time going over and over all the details to make sure every single second was perfect. Summer talked about others like Jackson who were driven by the same quest and had become superstars.

I thought about that quest when it comes to success. Malcolm Gladwell wrote about it taking 10,000 hours to master something to a virtuoso level. Over the course of my career I've easily put in 10,000 hours working on shows. I don't feel like a virtuoso. I spent over 500 hours working on the Wizard of Oz alone. There were many things that I wasn't satisfied with as I worked on Oz. I would redo an effect two or three times until I was mostly satisfied. I constantly challenged the cast to do a better performance than the last one each time they took the stage. Everyone knew I was constantly trying to improve the show. I guess that is a quest for perfection... and yet. There were things that I learned to live with. I had wanted a double screened video projection for the cyclone, but the theatre couldn't afford a second more powerful projector on our budget so I had to give up on perfection and live with what I was able to accomplish given the time and funds. I had wanted to paint more texture on the walls and do a floor treatment but ran out of time before the show opening and then got sick right after the opening weekend so I gave up trying to finish that and instead chose to move on to other projects I had put on hold while I worked on Oz. I don't know that there has ever been a single show that I got everything I wanted completed. Maybe that is my quest for perfection. But I also know when to learn to live with what I can't complete, can't afford, and can't achieve. Sometimes being able to accept things that aren't exactly perfect opens the door for creativity and for insights that made me grow as a person. It seems that many of the great artists who were perfectionists were also driven by their own demons into depression, drugs and alcohol and often death. I wonder if I stayed with the quest for perfection instead of settling for close I too might be a superstar. Then again I could just as easily be neurotic.

Remembered for

2009-06-20T08:54:00.003-05:00

It has been quite a while since I last blogged on this site. Wizard of Oz has overwhelmed my writing capacities. I just finished reading a book on non-profit management by Peter Drucker. In it he talks about one of his teachers in a Catholic school. A priest who asked the class of young men "What do you want to be remembered for?"

Of course most of them had no clue. Even later in life those who were in the class often had answers to that question that wasn't what they eventually settled on. I have thought about that question for myself. What I thought I wanted to be remembered for when I was in my teens and 20's was all about personal goals relating to theatre. I wanted to be a world famous designer or creative artist. I dreamed my career would be in New York or Hollywood.

As I've gotten older I hung onto that thought but other things developed. As I moved into my 50's that New York and Hollywood dream don't seem as important to me anymore. I'm still trying to figure out the answer to that question but it seems that the question actually isn't so much of a single thing as it is about a how.

These past weeks I've had a couple of times where I needed to talk to people about making good choices. Moments in life when your libido or your desires are pulling you in directions that fill your need to feel good but in the long run are choices that you may regret years later. It is as these moments that the question "What do you want to be remembered for?" comes into play. As I watch politicians and every day people having to confess to indiscretions that come to light I'm reminded of the old saying that you shouldn't do anything that you wouldn't want to read about on the cover of the local newspaper. I think that goes along with the What do you want to be remembered for. I've written several times about struggling with integrity. Life is always waiting for you to say or do something "stupid" and then for everyone to find out about it. An unkind word said about someone else will always get back to them. A moment of inappropriate behavior will always be witnessed or found out about. It seems to go to personal ego too. When I get too full of myself I'm always pulled back. When I get lots of compliments on my work or on what I've done with some project- I am always reminded that I didn't do something alone. There are always dozens of people who contributed to that success. Success like the current show is fleeting. In theatre there is a saying that you are only as good as your last show. Each time you start a new project you risk all of the success that you've had in the past.

Nothing in this life is accomplished without the help of others. I have been moving into the next phase of my life which is to be a mentor to others. To let go of my personal needs for success. The biggest legacy I can leave in this life is to remember that I'm part of a long chain of people who supported me when I needed it and to support others as they need it. Life is truly a gift. A gift to be present in the lives of other people and when I am remembered it was that I did the best I could, I cared about people, I was a good husband and father, and I made a positive difference in the lives of the people that I touched. There have been many people I've heard that said about, but I didn't realize how tough it was to live a life like that and how much of a compliment that is to be remembered that way. I'm going to fail and fall down, but I just have to keep asking myself - What do I want to be remembered for?

Sermon for June 7th

2009-06-08T12:14:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted because of working on the Wizard of Oz and trying to devote the little bit of personal writing to finishing up this sermon for the graduation of the Education for Ministry (EfM) class. Here is the sermon I presented on Sunday June 7th. I hope to get back into the swing of writing more in this blog now that the show is open.

I can’t do this-

There have been several times in my life when I said that and yet… here am I. When God called Isaiah – Isaiah said - I can’t do this. Yet he ultimately ended up saying “ Here am I, send me.”

How did I get here. How did I agree to stand up here today? How did I agree to spend the past four years of my life in a class every Monday morning for 2 ½ hours?

Because I said I can’t do this

When I was 18 I said, “I can’t do this”. I walked out of church and thought I would never return. I had so many questions about who and what God was. The Bible seemed to be filled with conflicting answers. A dark and vengeful God, a loving God, a God who created, and then destroyed humanity. I had a very difficult time reconciling the God of the Hebrew Bible with the message of Jesus and the New Testament. I was raised in a non denominational Christian church and sang Jesus loves me this I know along with a rousing Onward Christian Soldiers marching as to war.

As I looked around at the world I saw Christians who believed in fighting and killing communists in Vietnam, I saw Christians wearing white hooded robes, burning crosses, beating and killing people because of the color of their skin. I saw Christians proclaim Aids as a just wrath of God on good people because they loved the wrong kind of person. I saw Christians standing behind rope lines screaming at women who were hurting and confused as they entered planned parenthood clinics. I read stories of Christians at the Salem witch trials, the inquisition that burned heretics at the stake.

At the same time I found myself filled with imperfections. A Christian I thought meant trying to be perfect. I was sure that as far as Christianity was concerned I wasn’t headed in the right direction. Although the Bible tells us that Jesus forgives, it didn’t seem like God was very forgiving in the stories of the Old Testament. At what point does God give up on you? “Here am I”, I shouted at God. “But who and what are you!” Why does being a Christian have any effect on this world that I live in? The world of aids, terrorism, cancer, infectious diseases, and nuclear weapons, not the world of shepherds and sheep.

I was the prodigal son who left home, left the church, left my family, left God, and went out into the world. I had a fierce desire to seek the truth. At times it felt like God had cursed me with the need to ask the question why? To want more than Sunday school verses as answers. The Christian faith that I saw around me didn’t seem to know what to do with all those questions. Thirty years ago all I knew was – I can’t do this. I can’t keep being part of faith that didn’t make sense.

Garrison Keeler wrote that “you learn most of the basic concepts of life by the time you turn 21. But you don’t understand it until after you turn 50 and have a lifetime of experiences to be able to give meaning to those concepts. My mid life crisis happened in my late 30’s. I found myself looking in the mirror and saying I can’t do this. I can’t continue to live my life without a connection to God. My wife April had just started attending Grace church in her spiritual journey because many of our friends at the theatre attended here. I still had questions, but I decided to return to the church. To go back through a door I had walked out of earlier. I decided to give it one more chance in the fervent hope that I could learn to find some new answers. Even after I returned I still found myself asking what is faith? What should I believe? What is the difference between faith and religion.

Different religions seem to me to be like diet books with each offering the sure fire way to lose those pesky doubts and find God in only 21 days. As my fellow EfM graduate, Sally Proctor, was fond of saying - We each have our own rabbit holes that we have to go down. Faith without a community of others is like chasing after that rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Reading books by spiritual writers is like being at that famous tea party with the Mad Hatter- each person telling you what God is. God sometimes appears like the grinning Cheshire cat and then disappears just as soon as you think you’ve got him treed. At other times God seems like the Queen of Hearts. Off with their heads!

Episcopalian writer and professor, Diana Butler Bass, makes the point that too often the Christian church has felt uncomfortable with its own past. We try to pretend that we have “evolved”. But what is the price for letting go of the past.

Christian Education has developed a spiritual amnesia. Is this amnesia a precursor to religious Alzheimer’s, a fatal loss of memory for which there is no cure? In year 3 of EfM one of the chapters begins with this anonymous quote- Someone once said: Everyone has a right to their own opinion. But no one has a right to be wrong about the facts. Let me repeat that. Everyone has a right to their own opinion. But no one has a right to be wrong about the facts.

EfM has taught me that there is a whole world of Christian tradition and facts that I never knew existed. When I left my Christian home at 18 it was as if I had been given an alphabet that stopped ½ way through and then jumped to the end. Like most good fairy tales the princess is in distress and the handsome prince rides up, saves her and they ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Except in this case it’s Jesus who slays the dragon, saves us and then we all ride off to heaven. Too often Christian education gets to the letter J for Jesus and then we simply jump to the letter U for Utopia and we all live happily ever after.

Bass writes that “The Christian past raises meaningful contemporary issues. We understand our actions anew; we discover unexpected spiritual possibilities for our lives.” We can see the path of those who asked the same questions we are asking today, generations ago, and they found a meaning that moved them forward. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says, “History will not tell us what to do, but will at least start us on the road to action of a different and more self-aware kind, action that is moral in a way it can’t be, if we have no points of reference, beyond what we have come to take for granted.” What should we remember? What traditions should be retained? What should we teach our children?

The Episcopal church with classes like EFM are teaching small groups of people the rest of the Christian alphabet. I am a Christian, an Episcopalian, a person who is struggling to move into the future and rediscover and understand the past. Being a Christian involves memory, fellowship, worship and understanding.

Yet when Libby Wade began to form the first EfM group here at Grace Church my initial response was – I can’t do that. I just don’t have time. I work on the average 70 hours a week at the theatre. But God was also whispering to me in a small voice telling me that if I really wanted to find the answers, to find that elusive relationship then I needed to take this class. Finally with more of a sigh than a strong voice. I said- Here am I, Send Me.

EfM is a process.

I couldn’t help but see the symbolism in the first meeting of our EfM class. We had 12 members. That is the limit to a class size. Like the 12 apostles who followed Jesus we gathered around the center of our Christian faith in Jesus to learn, to worship, and to find meaning in our lives. As my friend Nick is fond of saying. Jesus never answered a question. He always told a story that you had to figure out for yourself. Our four years were filled with the stories of faith from our own lives as we tried to discern the meaning.

Each week EfM begins with a check in of each class members highs and lows from the past week. Over the four years I have listened and learned from the lives of my fellow classmates. I have found joy in the birth of a class member’s new grandchild, in the brilliant color of the leaves outside the windows of our classroom as we start in the fall to the cold and yes- ice of winter, and then to the budding of flowers in the spring as we end each years classes. I have found joy in the power of the grace of God to redeem those in our families who are struggling or lost. I have found a deep sadness in the death of a classmates parent. I have been challenged to face my own mortality. Through EfM I have been a first-hand witness of God’s love not just as an idea but as a living breathing presence in the lives of those in my class. That is truth.

At the beginning of each year, class members must each take time and share a spiritual autobiography of our lives. I remember Ann Farrel’s story of being a child in a Japanese Prison camp during World War II with a missionary father. I remember Trish Baxter’s story of her days at Johns Hopkins and on the Indian Reservations. I remember Dabney Haugh’s story of growing up surrounded by the love of her grandparents and parents and how her grandmother would tell her bible stories. I remember Lynda Songer and the stories of her Jewish stepfather and his kind of Jewish- Christian faith. I remember the stories of Carol Ann Narozniak’s father who was a doctor and taught her what it meant to feed the hungry and take care of the sick. Each of the people I have had the honor of sharing a class with over the past four years is no longer just a face in the pew on Sunday morning. It is a deeper connection because of a shared experience. I have shared in their stories of faith lost and faith rediscovered. Like the Hebrews who journeyed from Egypt to the promised land, my EfM journey has given me a deeper connection to others in my community of faith.

In the first year you study the Hebrew Bible- The Old Testament. The second year is the study of the New Testament. The third year is early church history. The fourth year is modern thought and modern church history. Half of each class is spent sharing what we have learned from the study materials about our past.

Each week we end our class with worship led by a class member. Sometimes we used our hands to draw pictures of God with crayons while we read psalms. Sometimes we mediated silently. Each class member was required to take turns leading the worship in ways that were meaningful to them. I learned that each of us prays differently. Yet each of us is asked to respond to Christ's call to the community of faith, and our own congregation's call to ministry and mission. Our mouths may proclaim thy praise, but it is the actions of our hands and feet that do God’s work in the world.

The final part of Efm is understanding. In EfM language this is called theological reflection. I have read lots of books on faith in the world. I can quote authors and historians, theologians and great philosophers. But you can’t have only an intellectual relationship with God. At some point you have to put down the books and the history and start transforming yourself and the world around you into the kingdom of God. EFM has taught me how to feel God’s presence in the joys and sorrows of those I have shared these four years with. How to listen to their life stories and combine them with my story to create a new story written by God. A story of a God who continues to appear in the world in human form. A story that takes men and women throughout church history, some of them deeply flawed, and transforms their lives to help build the kingdom of God one brick at a time. The world will come along from time to time and knock down parts of that kingdom. Bad things will happen to good people. But I know that God is calling me personally to be connected in this world. If you sign up for EfM you won’t be asked to become a priest or get up and give sermons. (Well maybe give a sermon when you graduate.) But you will be asked to listen. To listen to that voice that is calling you when you say- I can’t do this and to find the strength to say Send me.

I have returned home from my journey. God has given me a home and a faith that I can belong to. But the story hasn’t ended yet. It is still being written each morning as I wake up and continue on my journey of faith.

EfM has taught me that when we look at the world we hold the incredible beauty and joy of God’s creation in one hand. While we also hold the intense pain and suffering of being human in the other hand. Being called by Christ is the process of being able to take those two worlds and bring them together as we form our hands together in prayer and worship to make meaning out of our lives and to build the kingdom of God one brick at a time.

I can’t not do this.

Here am I; send me.

Amen

Here am I

2009-05-17T09:53:00.005-05:00

It has been almost 20 days since I last posted and my mind has been turning over several issues. I've started writing this blog several times and then deleted it. Even when I'm sitting at home trying to unwind my mind is still working on some issue. If it isn't how to make some piece of scenery work, its on how to develop a better funding base or how to make meaning out of life in the world. One of adult performers at the theatre told me she was reading Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. She made the comment that sometimes she complains about a problem but doesn't want her husband to try to fix it. Is it genetic that men want to fix things? I can't help but try to find a solution to the problems that are placed in front of me. Part of my engineering brain wants to find a workable technical solution. Part of my creative brain is looking for a conceptual idea that will make a breakthrough. As a director/designer/and artist I look for ways to translate words, ideas and thoughts into physical realities that produce and emotional response and physical response from others.

I have finished up my last class in the final year in my Education for Ministry course. This course was originally designed for people to be able to move into ministry without having to go away to seminary. The creators of the course soon discovered that there was a large group of people who were ready for this educational experience but didn't want to go into the priesthood. They had reached a point in life that they wanted to find answers to the meaning of life and the meaning of death. I have to laugh as I write this because I don't consider myself a "religious" guy. I'm always worried that if I write about faith or about religion people will think I'm some kind of zealot who is out to convert the world. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I've always been the kind of doubting skeptic at the side who says "if this is the truth then prove it to me". "Why does any of this have any relevance in my life?" Last night I spent a couple of hours working on what I will say on June 7th when I've been asked to give the sermon about EFM. That is the Sunday right after Wizard of Oz opens. It is the final month of the current fiscal year for the theatre and we wrap up the 45th Anniversary Season. All these things keep moving back and forth in my head as I try to write my thoughts.

Isaiah's scripture passage of "Here am I; send me" is one that will be read on June 7th. I've been thinking about that passage. I think that this applies to so many things in life. The other phrase that comes to mind is "I can't do this." As I think about several of the great kids that have grown up at the theatre who are graduating from High School this year I want to pass on something to them. To give them something to help them on their path. Here is a tiny piece of wisdom I have learned. "Here am I; send me."

Several points in my life I have been at a crossroads. I've been called to do something that was not easy. That meant sacrifice and accepting a challenge that made me risk failure. I've been forced to make life changes when I found myself having to make a choice that was in conflict with my core beliefs. I've said to myself "how did I ever end up here?" For me I've found that I had to walk away from the easier choice towards a more difficult and sometimes a much more painful path in order to move forward. "I have to do this no matter how much it hurts even though part of me is yelling loudly "I can't do this" and dragging my feet. I once got a compliment from a friend that has stayed with me for many years. They told me how much they admired me because I was willing to go to the difficult places in life that they couldn't.

Maybe it is that stubborn streak in me that says I will not be defeated by this challenge. Maybe it is part of me that believes in integrity and says I can't change what I believe in even though it is going to cost me. The sign on my cabinet behind my desk says "having integrity is always painful. It is always much harder to act with integrity." I always thought that the phrase "Here am I; send me" was said in a loud clear voice like a soldier going off to war. A person filled with the spirit of God. now I believe that more often it is said just a few moments after "I just can't do that." "Here am I; send me" is said with a quiet voice, a resigned voice that you cannot turn away from what you are called to do, it is said from that point in the core of who you are when you know you can't walk away from difficult decision. It is said with a knowledge that this is going to be painful and not going to be easy, it is said with the courage of faith that somehow this is the right thing to do and you put yourself in God's hands and hope that the strength to do it will come, it is said with the hope that you will survive the ordeal. When God asked Moses to go to Egypt he begged God to send someone else. Throughout the story of God those who history has labeled giants of faith have been called and have all said, "I' can't do this." Then after a sigh said, "Here am I; send me".

universal versus unique

2009-05-07T08:25:00.002-05:00

I had a discussion with a friend yesterday. A topic in our conversation came up and I told my friend that I had just finished reading a chapter on the poet John Donne. Some of the things he wrote about in his suffering are lessons for me in how I deal pain or suffering. My friend told me that it was impossible to apply somebody elses lessons learned to another person's life. They said because each life is so unique it doesn't work. I agree that each person is a unique individual and you can't apply a one size fits all solution to life's problems. However, I have found over the years that we are all so much more alike than we are different. We each will deal with pain and suffering in some form during our lives. We each seek love and compassion from others. We each want to know that our life has meaning and that the world is not just full of arbitrary moments without a greater meaning.

In the conversations I've had with my friend, they always use the response that there is no universal truth. That each person's truth is just an opinion that isn't any more valid than anyone elses. That no religious or philosophical truth is any more important than any other. Somehow I can't believe that. My idea of the truth may be different from someone elses, that is true. But my striving to find the truth is universal. My friend Nick has a plumb bob that he had hanging in his office for many years. It always hangs straight up and down. It is used by builders to find a straight up and down line. He would always say that we all stand at different points looking at that line and measure our truths against that line. That line represents God. Another person who is a modern writer wrote a book about the universal theory of everything. He says that we each come from four quadrants and that universal truth will hold up from all perspectives. Like a scientific theory it may be true that a+b+c=d when looked at from one point. However if b+a+c does not equal d from a different point then it is not a universal truth. Each faith tradition has found a path that seems to be true for its followers- some feel more connected by becoming more involved in physical activities, others feel more connected by separation from the everyday world and meditation. Which is more true? Some feel that what is morally right from a religious perspective should be the legal law. Others feel that laws should not be based on religious morality. (The Taliban and the Inquisition come to mind.) Some want to return to the values and traditions of 50 years ago and fight against a world that doesn't want to return.

The only answer that seems to make sense to me in this complicated, globally connected, multi-tasking world of ours is to guide our lives by certain universal principles learned from many others who have gone before us.

These are the lessons that I've learned from others that I try to apply to my life:

We don't hold the complete truth- we only know the truth from our vantage point in time and relative to others.

We all are striving towards something. It may be striving to be loved, to find God, to make a difference in the world, and to create something lasting, etc... For me it is better to believe in some universal redeeming truth than to believe there isn't one. Ultimately the only thing we create that is lasting is how we deal with others. Each life touches another, who will then touch another and on forever. We are connected all the way back through time and all the way forward into the future. This is how I can understand the faith idea of being present at the beginning of time, now and at the end of time. Each life is connected to another.

What I do today changes the world. I'm reminded of all the things that my mother and father did on a daily basis when I was a child. Childhood friends of mine will tell me stories about how my parents did something that they remember from their childhood. My parents and community formed who I am. They were formed by their parents and those they met growing up, and so on. We will each treat others and ourselves badly at some time during our lives. We will each feel pain and loss. But there is something that calls us to become more than a collection of life experiences. As Mother's Day approaches this weekend I think about the lifetime of giving to her family, her church, and her community that shaped my mother's life. She instilled in me by her daily actions that life is precious and has meaning. Her life proves to me that there are universal truths.

Yes it may only be my universal truth, but it seems to pass the plumb bob test and the universal theory test.

Simple life

2009-05-02T09:16:00.004-05:00

I just finished reading a chapter about Gandhi in a book by Phillip Yancey. The principles he lived by are an incredible example to the world of a man who had "soul" power. In several books about him it is documented that he began as a lawyer with the fancy suit and the top hat and tried to become part of the successful society. His journey led him down path in which he tried to teach simplicity as a core virtue. The amazing thing is that he never asked anyone to do anything that he personally was not willing to do. There is a story about a woman who came to Gandhi to ask him to tell her young son to stop eating sugar. He told her to come back in a week. When she came back Gandhi simply told the boy to stop eating sugar. The mother asked Gandhi why she had to wait a week for him to tell her son that. He told her that when she first asked, he was still eating sugar.

I can understand more clearly the principle of giving up the world in order to gain your life. The more things that we have the more that we are owned by them and the more we lose our own sense of who we are. I've witnessed it happening every time a child grows up and we tell them to go out and see the world and to do things with their life before they get tied down to a house payment, insurance, car payments, utilities, etc....

The man who has everything, is a servant to his possessions. The man who has little hasn't much to lose. It is advice that I think is very relevant to the our current time. As I think about all the things I have to support in order to do my job and provide for my family. Our way of life depends on us continually buying more stuff, going to more events and staying connected to the world in more ways. In watching Tilghman's Fiddler on the Roof last night, one of Tevye's lines says "if being rich is a sin, may God smite with it and may I never recover" swirled around the back of my brain all night. I dream of winning the lottery and doing great things with the money. Supporting my family so they can live in comfort, giving to charities that mean a great deal to me, helping my friends and community with the money. I dream of a world in which I have everything that I want. But when hard times come and I have to give up the things that I've accumulated or taken for granted, I feel the loss even deeper.

Gandhi cut his weekly expenses in half. Then he cut them in half again and again. Finally all he had was a loin cloth, his glasses, a watch, and a spoon which had broken that he mended with a string. The man wasn't a "saint" when it came to family and friends and the way he treated them. But his simple life, which changed the second most populous country on the face of the earth, calls to mind another man who died with only a robe to his name nailed on a cross whose message still resonates today. I'm not trying to say that Gandhi is a reincarnation of Jesus. But both men practiced a simple life devoted to non violence and the dignity of all.

As I struggle to budget for my personal life I think of the cell phones, Internet, cable TV, newspapers, magazines, house payments, utilities, insurance payments for life-health-property, retirement funds, college funds, donations to the charities, in short all those things that I work to pay for. Our food comes from a microwave ready at a moments notice, or from a drive through window because we are working to pay for the things that we have and don't have time to cook anymore. My daughter's idea of cooking is to put something in the microwave and punch in the time for cooking.

For the theatre I think of online ticketing, credit card acceptance, glossy programs, bigger sets, more lavish costumes and lights, more musicals with bigger royalties which require more marketing which require more tickets sold which requires more staff and support, etc...

I think I'll go back and reread the chapter on Gandhi again. The lessons of his life can be as valuable to me today as they were to his nation 50 years ago.

clean slate

2009-04-30T08:08:00.003-05:00

Some days I find myself thinking- what else? What else can we undergo right now? We've seen two ice storms and a hurricane in the past year. Almost every family I know has seen a casualty from the economic recession, depression, whatever you call it. Now this flu pandemic has the potential to bring our entire world to a standstill.

Last year the Red Cross held a disaster planning seminar. I would have attended it if we didn't have a show going on that weekend. I know that we need to plan for what to do when essential services are interrupted and weather related emergencies. But how do you plan for a pandemic? When no one wants to go out in public. What will theatres, restaurants, sport events, churches and schools do if no one wants to attend? How do you plan for that? You've still got essential services- the roads are open, the electricity is still on.

Yesterday as I was setting up the sound equipment in the studio theatre I felt the building rumble and tried to decide if it was just a large truck passing by or an earthquake. I couldn't help but think -An earthquake? Why not? Everything else is happening.

At times I can't decide if it is a human emotion to just want it all to go ahead and happen. To get all the bad stuff right now and get it over with. Then you can start to rebuild. To move forward knowing that the worst is past. I've often thought about my feelings when I see a weeks worth of "disaster news networks" programming about a hurricane or the pandemic coming. Is it weird of me to just want it to hurry up and happen? For a hurricane to go ahead and hit us with all its might and then be over with? Maybe it is the unknown that unsettles me more than the known.

Family health issues, the economy, all the stuff in life that you worry about and lose sleep over. I've always been a kind of worst that can happen guy. I think of all the catastrophic things that can happen and move on into the next chapter of the story. A good play sets a course for conflict. It reaches a climax and then there is a resolution. Maybe that's what I'm missing in our world today. It seems that we are always stuck heading toward a climax but there is never a resolution.

We all want that resolution after the climactic moment of the play to get to the happily ever after moment. I find that more and more people have less patience with the struggles of life. In the rush to get a resolution they buy the fastest way to get through a problem. Maybe this is even a part of my thinking wanting the big "bang" to hurry up and happen because I'm growing weary of the buildup.

Some days after I sit and look at all the financial spreadsheets, the brainstorming sessions, the articles and books written about how to face the challenges ahead- I still don't have answers for the problems. I just want to start again with a clean slate. In one of my play writing phases of life I worked for almost a year on a play only to learn that the real story was about 10% of what I had written. I really struggled with the fact that I could have a mediocre play and keep the 90% I had worked on or throw it all out except the 10% and begin again with a better play.

I keep finding myself at moments in life wanting a fresh point to begin from. To quote from Shakespeare Julies Caesar (or Star Trek- Wrath of Khan) "Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war!" If we are going to get hit with war and disasters and depressions. Then lets get to it, so we can resolve it and start with a clean slate.

Then again maybe I'm just cranky today....

dogwoods

2009-04-20T22:11:00.005-05:00

When I returned from the beach I got slammed. I got out of the car on Friday April 10, and didn't get a chance to really come up for air until yesterday. I started a couple of books while I was on vacation and haven't had a chance to finish any of them. In addition I've got 3 magazines that I'm about half way through that were started the same week.

I attended my EFM (Education For Ministry) class this morning for the first time in 3 weeks. I was gone during spring break and then we didn't have class last week. It was a little like trying to get back on a horse again to get back into the class mode. I have 5 weeks left in this fourth and final year of classes to complete the course. The chapter this week was on the theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer. I have always been a fan of his writing and ideas. This chapter tied in the 1960's theology of God is Dead as well. It was an interesting chapter that spoke to me on several levels.

Part of the chapter talked about Bonhoffer and others like him who tried to hang onto their traditional faith in a modern world in which our science and technology makes believing in traditional God a difficult proposition at times. The God I was taught in Sunday School as a child doesn't always work in the complex world that we live in today. EFM along with several other books that I've read over the years have provided me with a more multi-layered understanding of a God that works in the world. In order to develop that multi-layered faith you have to be willing to let some of your earliest ideas about God die in order to discover a bigger God than you knew before. Or to paraphrase scripture- you must be willing to give up your life in order to find it.

Because of our Spring Break trip and opening the show I missed Palm Sunday and Easter this year. However I find myself still thinking about the themes of Easter and Joseph Campbell's the Hero's Journey as I think about faith and life. Every major growth moment in my life has come from accepting the death of one thing to make way for the birth of something greater. With each death and birth we go through the 5 stages of dying identified- anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. This pattern constantly appears again and again never seems to get easier.

As I look at the challenges that I face with the theatre and its future, my own career and its path, my faith and the ideas that animate it, I'm reminded about the lessons of Easter and the Hero's journey. We go along thinking that things will always be the same. Suddenly something happens. A recession, or an accident, or even aging itself. We are called to give up some things we have always depended on move in new directions. We can ignore that call and continue to act as if everything is still fine, pretending that nothing has changed at all. I read in American Theatre magazine all of the long standing theatre companies that either went out of business or are in danger of closing this past year. One theatre in central Kentucky is doing a campaign to "save the theatre". I wonder what will happen next year? Will they do another campaign to save the theatre again. Will people respond again. How many times can you save something. I can't help but think about how we respond to a changed world (the call). Many arts organizations send out desperate appeals for money to help them continue to do what they had always done. Some are able to hold off major changes in the way they operated by having large donors run to the rescue. Others have recognized that they can't keep doing what they have always done- they have accepted the call and have started on a journey that will lead to face some difficult places.

In the Hero's Journey answering the call means setting off in the wilderness alone where you will ultimately face your own demise. Old assumptions are left behind. We have to face the darkest parts of ourselves and our way of living. We have to let some parts of us die. Some people never recover from that death. They stand and mourn over the grave refusing to budge. Others bury the parts that no longer work, understand that in order to continue to grow we have to let go of some things and arise with a new broader understanding of ourselves and our lives. In the final part of the Hero's Journey the traveler returns to the community with the new found knowledge and helps the community grow into something new.

On a personal level I experienced this the past few months on a couple of levels. One area is the fact that my entire life I've run sound for shows. I started out my professional career mixing sound for a huge theme park production with 24 microphones and a full orchestra. I've prided myself on the fact that I was good at it. Recently I discovered that I have a partial hearing loss in the higher ranges. I can't hear when something is feeding back in higher pitches. I often have a ringing in my ears now that causes me to have to listen more carefully. It has been difficult for me to accept these changes. I have to let go of my certainty that what I hear is exactly what the audience hears. I have to put my pride to the side and allow myself to ask for help from others in an area that they had always asked me for help.

Along with many others I've been thinking about the nature of theatre itself and the nature of the church experience. It is important to keep the primary things that give meaning and life to both institutions without getting so focused on preserving all of the extra stuff. As one theatre writer put it- you could do theatre in a field without a building, without sets, costumes or props and it would still be an experience about telling a story to a community of people that matters. You can hold a church service in a field without pews and organ music and stained glass windows and it is still telling a story to a community of people that matters. Sometimes I get blinded by the things I've grown accustomed to and think I need that to survive and refuse to answer the call to go in new directions. As I finish up the current season at the theatre and my final year of EFM classes I am thinking about things that I'm hanging on to refusing to let die and things that are waiting to be born if I will answer the call. What things am I angry about, what is it that I'm in denial about, what depresses me, where am I trying to make bargains, and what have I finally accepted.

Spring and Easter are a time for new life. It is a good image for me to look at my dogwood trees that suffered so much and I almost cut down because I had to cut off so many broken branches. At one point I almost gave up hope on them and cut them down after the ice storm. They don't look perfect and they won't win any prizes, but dogwood blossoms are growing on the trees.

growing up

2009-04-12T21:45:00.002-05:00

I've just returned from vacation. While I was on vacation I purchased a couple of books to add to the couple that I brought with me to read while sitting on the beach or on the balcony in the morning with my coffee. The staff gave me a gift card to Books a Million and I used it to purchase two books. One of the books was by Diana Butler Bass on the Peoples History of Christianity. Butler Bass is a favorite author and speaker after I read her last book and listened to her at a couple of Emergent conferences. Her explanation of post-modern Christianity is really great. The other book I purchased was called 50 things to do when you turn 50. It has advice from all sorts of different well known people. A couple of my favorites were Garrison Keeler's and a playwright who writes in English and Spanish.

After arriving Saturday evening we went out on the beach on Sunday. I made the mistake of letting Jade spray my legs with sun screen. It was overcast and only in the mid 60's. I developed a huge sun burn from the inside of my right knee down across my shin in shape of a giant S. For the next couple of days I applied as much aloe as possible. It wasn't until the following Wednesday that we finally got back on the beach because of cold and wind. When we did I took great care to make sure that I sprayed my own sunscreen. As I sat on the beach reading my book I was worried about getting another sun burn and having to suffer through that. I decided to keep my T shirt on to protect all that "white" untouched by sun skin. As I joked to a friend "I live in a theatre cave and only come out once a year to get some sun."

Maybe it was reading the book about living in your 50's, maybe it was just a little bit of wisdom while I watched all of the 20 somethings walk by me with various shades of sunburns and exposed skin, maybe it was watching April suffer from sun burn for the same days that I did. I realized something. I didn't have to be 20 anymore and worry about whether I got a tan. The only person who was going to see me with my shirt off was going to be my wife. She was more sunburned than I was. I always felt the need to take that shirt off to get that tan. As soon as I decided that keeping my T-shirt on would made me worry less about getting too much sun and enjoy more sitting reading my book and looking at the ocean. That may seem like a no brainer to some people but to me it was a real sign of being okay with my age.

One of the other quotes in the 50 things book is that after you turn 50 its time to stop complaining about getting older. You either embrace the challenges that life presents you after 50 or you withdraw from them. I'm hoping that I embrace the challenges. A second book I purchased while on vacation was the Power of Less by Leo Babauta. I don't know if it was the chance to sit back for a little and reflect but I did find myself thinking about where I wanted to be when I hit that next milestone of 60. With my life and my job I find the need to limit myself to the essential becomes more and more important. I can't do everything that I used to and what's surprising sometimes for me is that I don't need to or want to.

So as I was hit by the avalanche of work awaiting me on my return Friday I'm trying to hang onto just a little bit of the beach. I miss hearing the ocean at night. April has a sound machine to help her sleep with the ocean but its just not the same!

Wanting

2009-03-28T15:55:00.001-05:00

I've been reading Harold Kushner's book WHEN ALL YOU'VE EVER WANTED ISN'T ENOUGH. It uses as its starting point the book of Ecclesiastes found in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). Kushner says that this is probably the most dangerous book in the Bible.

It has also always been my personal favorite book in the Bible. There probably isn't a week that goes by that I don't think of the phrase "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." For Kushner he sees Ecclesiastes as written by a man in his middle age who is desperately afraid of dying before he has learned how to live.

Over the course of several chapters we follow both the writer of Ecclesiastes and modern humans whose lives have been consumed by the thirst for power, for wealth, for pleasure, for martyrdom and knowledge. All of these bring no comfort to the writer in his search for meaning.

At times in my life I have identified strongly with the writer of Ecclesiastes. Trying desperately to keep working on problems to find the single solution that will solve everything. I can't count the number of times that I've told myself- "If I can only get through this, then everything will be okay." It is like searching for that illusive key to happiness and fulfillment that never is found. I have walked down lots of paths looking for that illusive key. Trying to find the ultimate answer that makes everything make sense.

There is a quote by Adlai Stevenson " What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is incommunicable. " All the observations about life which can be communicated handily are as well known to a man at twenty who has been attentive as to a man at fifty. He has been told them all, he has read them all, but he has not lived them all. What he knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is not the knowledge of formulas or forms of words, but of people, places, actions, a knowledge not gained by words but by touch, sight, sound, victories, failures, sleeplessness, devotion, love--the human experiences and emotions of this earth and oneself and other people; and perhaps too a little faith and a little reverence for things you cannot see." (quoted in William Attwood, Making it Through Middle Age, )

Carl Jung predicted that "in midlife we go back and fill in all the spaces that we left blank when we were growing up."

Towards the end of the book of Ecclesiastes the writer asks" What makes my life matter? What makes it more than a passing phenomenon, not worth noticing while I am alive and destined to be forgotten as soon as I am dead? His answer ultimately was, "I can't come up with an answer, but I instinctively feel that human life has to be more than mere biological existence. When I am happy at my work or with my family, when I love or am loved, when I am generous or thoughtful, I feel that something more significant than just being alive is going on. I feel human, and that feeling is more persuasive than logic or philosophy."

As I drove down to work this morning I looked at the world around me and remembered many rainy days from my past. As I picked up fallen branches in the church playground this morning I remembered other times in the past when I "lent a hand". There are times when I feel overwhelmed by the demands of job, family, and community. But I can truly say there are times when job, family and community are truly satisfying and in those moments lies the answer I've been seeking. Kushner makes a comment in the book that if we were supposed to find the ultimate answer then why does God continue to make tomorrows.

To paraphrase one of my favorite Jesus sayings " The Kingdom of God is not someplace else we go after we die or some place in the future. It is all around us right now if we can only see it." I think that is what Kushner is saying in his book.

Tomorrow is my 52nd Birthday. For me the Kushner book was a pretty good birthday present for a "middle-aged" man.

Weekend wrap up

2009-03-22T23:05:00.000-05:00

After Friday night's big event, I spent Saturday morning working at Grace Church and helped clear limbs and debris from the playground area. We weren't able to finish but we made a sizable dent in the brush piles. I spent the rest of Saturday doing the same thing to my own yard. I finally cleared the last brush pile and moved it to the large pile in front of my house waiting for pickup. I also took down the broken section of my daughter's swing set. A large limb had cracked two of the support posts and bent the metal plate that attached the monkey bars to the slide section. I felt a little sad as I removed the broken part of the swing set. This was a gift from my parents to my daughter when she turned 3. It has been with her through two houses and lots of hours of play.

Sunday afternoon was spent hanging a tire swing off of a large limb on the same tree that dropped branches and took out the swing set. (That'll teach that tree!) I also spent a couple of hours trying to find the break in the invisible fence buried in our yard. Our dog hadn't figured out that it wasn't working, however she was slowly moving closer and closer to the boundary area of the fence this past week. My back yard is on a step slope. This weekend I feel like I've walked 10 miles all up hill with each wheelbarrow load of brush to take to street and and the dozen trips walking back and forth testing for breaks in the invisible fence.

In my EFM class for tomorrow the chapter is on Feminist Theology. As the only male in the class this is a conversation that I thought as I began to read the chapter would be difficult for me. However the ways in which I think and speak about God aren't in the traditional patriarchal style. When I think of God I find myself much more at home with Eastern thought than with much of the Western Christian thinking. To me, God is what we live and breathe and have our being in as we move through life. Almost like the space that encompasses everything and we move though that space. In my class last week I found myself in the minority as I believe that nature of God changes. Not just our understanding of God, which does change and evolve, but God changes. If something isn't growing and changing then to me it is dying. As an artist it is hard for me to not think of what faith calls creation as something static. I know that the science tells us the universe is always expanding or contracting. It is still in the process of being created. I'm sure there are lots of scholars who would disagree with me, but that's okay with me. My ideas grow and change as I explore and experience the world around me.

In the four years I've been a part of the Education for Ministry classes my understanding and ideas and beliefs have continued to change and evolve. There are still times when I think, "Why do I believe the things I do? In the grand scheme of life does any of this really matter?"

I thought of my attending worship services with my family each Sunday. Asking to be forgiven for the things I did that I shouldn't have done and the to be forgiven for the things that I should have done but didn't. Also to forgive those who did things to me or should have done things for me. I thought about attending the Rotary meetings each Wednesday as we recite the Rotary four way test- "Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?"

One of the statements in the reading for this week states: " Some maintain that what we pray is what we do. Our work is our prayer and our prayer reflects our theology." My prayer is really a moment of shutting off the voice in my head and listening with my heart. Opening my heart to the world around me and its needs. As I think about my work I strive to live up to that idea, that the work I do during the week reflects my theology, my ethics and my integrity.
That's my 2 cents for a late Sunday evening.

Liberation theology

2009-03-17T06:25:00.003-05:00

I feel as if I've been on a treadmill for almost a month now. It is beginning to slow down a little before it shifts back into high gear in early April. Yesterday was the first time in 3 weeks I was able to attend my EFM class. The chapter under review for my group was about liberation. I feel as if I need some liberation myself. One of the definitions of liberation relates to oppression. One of the different kinds of oppression related to being freed from bondage and how the nature of that bondage has changed over the centuries. The text book says that everyone is oppressed in some way. A question/opinion was raised by a member of the class, "Some people don't think they are oppressed until someone comes along and tells them they are." What does liberation mean to me?

I've been kind of mulling that thought around in my head. I know that this strikes at the heart of a lot of conservative and liberal ideologies. In a conversation I had last week with a friend of mine we talked about people who have potential but never use it. My friend told the story of a person who had a real disabling injury. He was talented enough that he could have gone to school to receive training and possibly find a job with a company even with his disability. The catch was he had to be willing to give up his disability status. The man decided to stay where he was. The man turned down the chance because he felt he had reached his potential where he was. He couldn't imagine becoming more than he already was. Trying to become more than he was meant risking the lose of his only means of income to support his family

I saw a story on the news about project Bootstrap by SIU that took workers who were low wage and low skilled and gave them the skills to become business owners. A man who was a worker at a salvage yard learned how to talk to bankers and do taxes and was able to buy the yard he had worked at when it went up for sale. He said that he never imagined he would be anything more than a worker in the yard.

In some ways we are all limited by who we believe we are. I know that sometimes in these past couple of months I look around and wonder why I feel compelled to put in 80-90 hours a week. My wife teaches classes all day and then comes home and spends hours preparing for classes the next day. I can't imagine success without that work load. I'm often envious of the people who can be successful doing only one thing. In my career I've designed the sets, lights, costumes, and sound, as well as help construct all those technical elements, directed the plays, marketed the plays, helped sell tickets, ushered for the plays, and cleaned the theatre after the plays. I find myself thinking how nice it would be to only work on one part of the whole production. To not be pulled in 10 different ways.

Have I created a world in which I'm trapped by my own abilities? Have I reached my level of success and can't see anything beyond who I am right now? What is my liberation? The old expression "Cream rises until it sours" comes into my head.

Spring break is coming in a couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll find some liberation in sitting next to the ocean and watching the waves as I soak up some rays.

Chex Mix

2009-03-10T09:36:00.004-05:00

I'm always in charge of getting Jade fed breakfast in the morning. Jade is not a breakfast eater. This morning I gave Jade her choices for breakfast. She wanted soup (which is not unusual for her). I said "I thought you gave up soup for lent?" Jade with a totally straight face said "No. I gave up Chex mix".

Lent

2009-03-09T15:26:00.003-05:00

It's hard to believe that it's only been a week since I last wrote something. It feels like so much longer. Maybe because of the 16-18 hour workdays. In the 11 days, I've judged two days of talent competitions for America's Got Talent, had 1Tech/3 Dress rehearsals for Ramona Quimby as well as 5 days of performances of Ramona Quimby(some 3 shows a day), we did the cast party after the performance on Sunday afternoon for Ramona with still 2 school matinee shows this morning, and provided the sound and tech support for the Vagina Monologues performance Saturday night. Last night I got home to a yard full of branches from when the tree trimmers came by last week. I had only finished cleaning up everything that had fallen during the story the week before.

I spent about 2 1/2 hours dragging branches from my yard to the pile on the street. Then I went in and made photo discs for the Ramona Quimby cast and tried to prepare for my read through of Sugar Bean Sisters tonight. As I sat exhausted on the couch after it got too dark to drag limbs I thought about the book Outliers and the story about a Chinese proverb that says "He who rises before the dawn to go to work will be a wealthy man." I'm not seeing the wealth. I'm just seeing the exhaustion. No one ever promised me that life would be easy. I thought about the line from the play Ramona Quimby when the dad tells Ramona "being a grown up means that sometimes you have to do things that you don't like doing." Ramona responds "it's not fair that life is not fair." I wish that the limbs in my yard didn't fall. My daughter Jade wishes that Daylight Savings Time didn't happen in the spring. (She really didn't like getting up today.) Somethings in life are hard. Somethings you have a choice about.

My daughter Jade is trying to give up her favorite food for Lent- Soup. Jade will eat soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and has!) I thought I would try to give up artificial sweetener. I know that may sound odd. I generally put artificial sweetener in my coffee all day long. I know that it isn't good for me so I was trying to switch to natural sugar. I haven't been having much luck getting the measurements right. Too much... not enough... all while I'm exhausted from work. On Saturday I finally gave up and went back to my one packet of Splenda in my coffee. I know it doesn't seem like much. I probably should have given up sweeteners, both natural and artificial, altogether. Jade is doing a much better job of sticking to her Lent routine. I heard someone at church yesterday who will remain nameless that said "I didn't know that Lent was during Spring Break! I gave up beer for Lent, I just realized that I won't be able to drink a beer during Spring Break vacation, and I really like beer!"

I once tried giving up chocolate for lent. I did alright with that. Dieting is a little difficult for me but not impossible. You can take away my food but you can't take away my coffee.The season of Lent asks us to move out of the routine and into the intentional way of living. I'm trying to move out of my routine but this year I'm finding the going a lot tougher than usual.

Time management

2009-03-03T08:45:00.001-06:00

I need another 24-36 hours between now and Thursday morning to fit in all the things that need to be done.

Ice storm 2 cents

2009-02-25T22:54:00.003-06:00

I have been struggling this past week with people ltalking about the ice storm and overplaying its seriousness. It was a terrible time for our region. Many people went without power for many days and weeks. Over the past couple of weeks I've heard people talking about the storm and its devastation. Comparing it to Katrina.

The storm taught me a lot about preparing for natural disasters. But when people compare our ice storm to Hurricane Katrina I feel a little embarrassed. While our trees and personal sense of security took a beating, for the most part no houses were totally destroyed, nobody died from drowning, nobody was left to be rescued from their rooftops having lost everything they owned and separated from their families.

We will recover this spring and all of the debris will be removed eventually. Places along the gulf coast may never recover. People years later are still needing help to rebuild their lives.

I am thankful that we didn't experience the devastation of a Katrina event. In the grand scheme of life we got off pretty lucky.

A person in church last Sunday said that with each disaster there is something positive that comes. For me the ice storm brought me the gift of a better sense of empathy for those who suffered during the last couple of hurricanes that ravaged the gulf coast.

New perspectives

2009-02-23T23:10:00.002-06:00

Last week I was waiting for my daughter to complete her acolyte training at Grace Episcopal. While I waited I wondered into the adult library at the church and discovered two books on Alzheimer's. The book was called the Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer's care. Over the course of the next two days I read the book cover to cover. I have always thought about my fathers illness as a progressive disease that will slowly rob him of the joy and meaning of life. Reading this book opened up my eyes to the fact that it can not only improve my fathers quality of life, but to also improve my own relationship to my father during this difficult time in his life.

Saturday evening my daughter and I went to the Symphony performance. We were given tickets to the event on the front row. I won't tell how long it has been since I attended the symphony but lets say the first George Bush was in office. The soloist was wonderful and the music was also great. The front row is a location I wouldn't buy tickets for. I much prefer to be about 1/2 way back in the audience. From 1/2 way back you can see the entire stage in one glance. The sound quality is also much better there. We sat in seats next to the boom camera. Every so often I would be watching the performance and suddenly feel this large object moving just above my head and then down onto the stage. Jade of course was dressed in her best "theatre" dress. Before the concert started Jade asked me if there was an intermission. I looked in the program and told her yes. Then she wanted to know if we could get chips and a coke at intermission. I think she was more excited about the intermission snacks than the concert but she stayed awake the entire evening. I had to restrain myself at times because when I listen to music I enjoy I be-bop my head a lot. I looked around and almost every other person was just sitting there perfectly still. My head was nodding to the music and my feet were tapping to the beat and my hands wanted to keep time too! Jade had put this sparkling kind of face powder on and every time she leaned against me I ended up covered in little sparkles.

Sunday afternoon was spent hauling branches from my backyard to my front yard. I can still barely move. All through the weekend I kept thinking about the book on Alzheimer's. Living each day to the fullest and enjoying life because you may not always be able to. My grandfather and my father both have the disease and I can't help but think about them and wonder if my life will follow the same path. Thinking about the fact that there is a possibility for a good life even after the disease makes it a little easier to bear. The trick is to not dwell on what is lost or gained in life. It is to be thankful for the small moments that I've had- going to the symphony with my daughter, having breakfast each week with good friends, and sitting in front of the fireplace on a cold night with my wife curled up against me and my daughter sitting on my lap. It's all in how you look at.

Friday the 13

2009-02-14T22:39:00.003-06:00

I don't usually hold much regard for superstitions like Friday the 13th but yesterday proved me wrong. Thursday night I had trouble sleeping. I kept feeling a pressure like someone pushing their hand against my chest. On Friday the feeling returned a couple of times during the day. As the afternoon wore on I the feeling would return and then disappear after strong exertion. I told April and she insisted that I go immediately to get checked. As it was almost 5 pm I thought about getting a doctors appointment for Monday. April convinced me that I shouldn't wait. So I went to the ER at a local hospital (which I will not name). I was immediately whisked into an examination room. To jump to the end I emerged Saturday at noon after passing a stress test that said my heart was fine. The 19 hour process from Friday night until Saturday at noon was at times reassuring, frustrating, painful, and exuberant. I was so happy to walk out of my hospital room directly to my car. It felt like I was an inmate released from jail.

In December I spent 3 days with my father at the Freidert (don't know if I spelled that right) Hospital in Milwaukee Wisconsin. The difference between the Paducah hospital and the Milwaukee Hospital were like night and day.

At the Milwaukee hospital the staff checked on my father and every 30-60 minutes or so someone would walk in to just check in. They asked my father if he needed anything. Over the course of one evening the main nurse and the assistant nurse, a social worker, a chaplain, a physical therapist, a speech therapist, several lab techs and others came in to check on my fathers condition. Some checked in to see if he or my family had any questions and helped us to care for my father as well. They listened to what we said and responded with answers or by finding someone who could explain. They always asked my father how he was feeling. If he had any pain and if he was comfortable. The Milwaukee hospital had customer service down to an art. From the time he entered until they left him at the door there wasn't anything they could have done better. This was the week of Christmas with all its ups and downs and a snowstorm to boot.

At the Paducah hospital after the shift change on Friday I was left in an exam room with no one telling me what was going on for over an hour and a half. Then when the person finally did appear and talked to me, I was shocked when he told me I was being assigned a room for the night. He said "Oh I thought they already told you." I told him that no one had told me and that no one gave me a reason why I was staying. I later looked at my armband and saw the doctors name. I realized that I had seen the doctor for less than a minute and a half the entire evening. I never saw a doctor until the next morning to explain what was happening. No one ever did come and tell me why I was staying or what my blood tests, chest xray, or any of the other things showed and why I was receiving the medication I was. Apparently the doctor had decided to hook me up to a Nitroglycerin drip IV. When the orderly started to push me out of the exam room to a room for the night he neglected to see that I was hooked up to an IV and I had to stop him so he didn't pull it out of my arm as he took off without the IV. When we got to the room there wasn't a rolling IV stand in the room. The orderly hooked the IV to the bed post and left me tethered. I had to ask the nurse if she could unhook my IV for me to use the restroom. She seemed surprised that I was left with no rolling IV stand and went and found one for me so I could finally go. The oddest moment was when the phone rang and I answered it. Someone on the other end asked "is the nurse in the room with you"? I told them I was alone and they said thank you and hung up. I'm not quite sure what that was all about. Did they lose the nurse?

They told me I would get a headache from the Nitroglycerin. Boy was than an understatement! By 11:45pm I had not eaten since the morning and had asked for something to eat since the Nurse told me I would be staying at 9 pm. I asked a couple of times and they told me they would check on it. Then it would be another 1/2 an hour before the next person came in and they told me they would check on it. One of the night nurses finally took pity on me and took it upon herself to go down and get me something. They told me there was no staff on Friday nights so the supervisor had to make me food. That was what took so long. I told everyone who came in the room my headache was getting worse. Because I told them my headache was getting worse and no one offered any pain relief I figured it wasn't allowed because of the Nitroglycerin. I know people can't read minds but when I said my head was pounding I would have thought they would ask if I needed something for the pain. Finally I told a nurse that I would kill for an aspirin and they said "You can't have aspirin but we can probably get you some Tylenol." I was left speechless. Why hadn't anyone told me I could have something for pain earlier. The Tylenol arrived soon after. The Tylenol barely made a dent in my headache. When I told the nurse this she said she would see if maybe we could turn down the volume of the Nitro drip. I waited and waited asking others who came in over the course of the next hour if their was anything they found out about getting the Nitro reduced. No one knew. I even asked the main nurse again and she said she would check on it as if this was something new. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and hit the call button and told the nurse that I had to get some relief from my headache and begged for the Nitro to be turned down or stopped since I hadn't had any chest pain for over 6 hours. The nurse came in within minutes and turned it off when I promised to call if my chest pressure returned. My chest pain never returned after the first hour I entered the hospital.

It took them 19 hours to let me go. I feel I would still be there if my family doctor hadn't stopped by to see me Saturday morning and agreed with me that there was no reason for me to stay other than waiting on a stress test. He told me if I failed the test I was going to stay. But if I passed I should be going home. I had been feeling like I was no longer a patient but an inmate being held against my will because the hospital was afraid to let me go for liability reasons.

The room I was given had heating controls that either made the room too warm or too cold. Several times during the night I had to get up and drag my IV over to turn off or on the heat.

I was thrilled to hear a voice call me on the phone after my family doctor apparently went to talk to someone and to tell me that I had been scheduled for a stress test, unfortunately they had no idea when but that there was a doctor on call for the day and they would try to work me in. The doctor was tied up elsewhere and they were waiting to see when he would come in. I finally got the call about 10:30 to take the test. While I was taking the test the doctor who was monitoring the stress test turned to the nurses while I was on the treadmill and chewed them out for the way the things were run on a Saturday morning. Telling them to focus on customer service. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the nurses because I knew they had no idea when he would show up from the earlier call. Unfortunately his chewing out the staff while he was supposed to be supervising my stress test didn't make me feel any better about his handling of customer service either.

It just felt that people weren't focused on the patient. Like they were understaffed and everyone was having to cover and couldn't quite get everything done. Things didn't seem to work after that shift change Friday night. From the heating to simple things like the fact that when I got food and asked the person who brought it to me if I could have another drink. They said sure and I never saw them again and never got the drink. When I told them my head was pounding from the Nitro they didn't ask if I wanted something for pain. I had to say "I'd kill for some pain medicine". The hospitals my have lots of awards for their medical skills and even may have good customer service during the week days. But Friday night after about 7 pm. They could learn a great deal from the Milwaukee hospital.

I plan to write a letter to the hospital to express these thoughts in a little more detail. I don't know that it will do any good. I never felt they didn't care. The two night nurses were very caring. The original staff in the exam rooms were very caring. It just seemed that the whole system was disconnected. Then again that could just be my luck on Friday the 13th.

I probably won't go back to be checked again at a hospital if I have chest pains unless they are sustained and prolonged. My experience last night is one I don't wish to repeat any time soon.

Normal

2009-02-08T13:58:00.002-06:00

As the week comes to a close I find myself drained by dozens of things that are demanding my attention. The trees in my yard stare at me every morning and night. I have several large branches still hanging from the trees. Lots of ripped off places on limbs were branches have broken off and fallen to the ground. One tree service I got an estimate from called the hanging branches "hangers" and the broken off branches "shiners". By the end of tomorrow I will have 5 estimates. None of the estimates are within my bank account range so April and I will have to figure out how to pay for the thousands of dollars or just let the trees stay in their current dilemma and wait for the "hangers" to fall and hope the shiners don't kill off the rest of the tree.

I've witnessed several events that have been postponed because of the storm. Some of them are right on the heels of the storm like our fundraiser next week, which was rescheduled, and some of the events are at the end of February or early March. The wide range of opinion about what should and shouldn't go ahead as planned has been interesting to watch from people I know. For some a return to normalcy was the most important. For others the storm was something that they felt needed a certain amount of time for healing before returning to normal. That healing will take several weeks after their power was restored.

I've always been of the opinion that when something knocks you down you get right back up and keep moving. I know that several of my friends disagree with that. What's normal? What's the right answer? I don't think anyone knows. It's different for every single person.

I'm currently reading a book by Paco Underhill called "Why we buy"- the science of shopping. Many of the things that he has studied about the way people shop over the years can be summed up pretty neatly. However any rule that works for the majority always has an exception.

I've reached a point in life that normal is what most people would consider extreme. It funny. Whenever I think I'm the only person who feels a certain way I find out that there is a large majority that think just like I do. At the same time when I think that everybody thinks the same way I do, I find out that a great deal of people don't think that way.

Normal is somewhere in between.

Hard Work

2009-02-03T17:14:00.003-06:00

I just finished the second day of chain saw activity and dragging branches to the front of my yard. My back hurts and my muscles are sore. My face is frozen from the cold. I can't help but think about the the book I finished early this morning before going in to work. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell raises several interesting ideas about success. The central theme seems to be about hard work. In almost every single case the most successful people are the people who were in the right place at the right time to benefit from opportunities that presented themselves. These people then put in a truly significant amount of hard work which allowed them to take advantage of other opportunities that presented themselves.

Gladwell writes about a student who was given a problem in a course on problem solving at Berkely. The student is faced with a math problem. This student instead of giving up after only a short time continues to struggle with the problem for twenty two minutes. It is at that point that they find the solution. As the instructor put it "success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after 30 seconds." Teaching children and adults to continue to struggle with a problem past that initial giving up point makes a world of difference. I see so many people today who don't get past the point of giving up when they are faced with difficult problems.

There is a Chinese saying "No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich." Our work ethic is learned from our culture. I think about the number of times have I read about the writer who got up early every morning before working a regular job to write their first novel that was a success. About the athlete who trains and trains for their chance to win a medal. In theatre so many people think you just walk onstage and be a star. They don't want to put in the hours of rehearsal and hard work outside of rehearsal that is required to really become a good actor. There are thousands of actors with ability who never make it because of the time it takes to get there. Gladwell has shown that the number 10,000 hours is seems to be the threshold for success. Bill Gates put in 10,000 as a kid learning on a computer from his grade school and later by sneaking into the University of Washington at night when his parents thought he was asleep. Professional athletes who played in little league, pony league, and the minors before getting there break in the major leagues. George Winston played at the Carson Center in the first year or so after opening. Joe Searcy who is in charge of the stage said that after the performance- Winston practiced for hours into the middle of the night.

Hard work and long hours of meaningful work do indeed pay off. Work that you can actually see a difference in the return from the amount of time you put in. The pile of branches in front of my house is 6 feet tall. I cut and hauled each one of those branches to make that pile. There is a satisfaction that I feel when I look at the pile (along with a lot of sore muscles!)

A study of the school year in different countries shows that America on average has a school year of 180 days. The South Korean school year is 220 days. The Japanese school year is 243 days long. We feel like kids need a summer vacation. Yet studies show that summer vacation actually reduces test scores in students. One of the top achieving schools in the country has school from 7:30 am to 5 pm 5 days a week and 7:30 to noon on Saturdays. The kids also take home 1-2 hours of homework. These kids aren't crammed full of information. They are given more time to work on math, reading, and writing skills. The more time they have to work on these areas the more relaxed and proficient they become. They are given a leg up by having a chance to put in 10,000 hours to be a successful. Those kids will go far in life. The significant statistic is that the kids from lower income homes do as well as the kids from upper income homes when they are given more time during the day to learn. It isn't about how smart you are. It is about how much time you have to learn.

Working for a non profit company has certainly not made me rich financially. I struggle like everyone else these days. I wake up every morning by 6 am and try to get in a little journaling and reading. I devour everything I can find that talks about success and the meaning of life before I head out the door to work. The people who work for me know that I'm always wanting to do just one more thing before I call it a day. When I walk in the door after 10 pm at night from work I read books on marketing or fund raising. Search theatre blogs and magazines for ideas on how to make the theatre a better place to create, how to better connect to audiences, how to make myself better. How to make the plays that I work on more meaningful to my community.

I often feel a twinge of jealousy when I'm working at 10 pm on a Saturday night at the theatre and I see people I know walking by to eat at Max's and having a great time. One night I realized that hard work was my choice. It was up to me if I worked or not. I could find satisfaction in what I was doing or I could end up feeling bitter and angry about the work I was doing. From that time on I continually remind myself that hard work is my choice. No one is asking me to do it.

I realize too there is a balance between work and life. I have a friend who when he sees me always kids me about being the hardest working man in showbiz. Work without friendship or time to recharge the creative juices drains me. Taking time to encourage the talents and the special gifts of the people that I work with, which sometimes puts me behind schedule and makes a longer work day for me, makes me a richer person. Even in the toughest times I generally feel a deep satisfaction with the work I do. I want to teach my daughter to struggle beyond the point of easy defeat. I want her to find a passion that fills her as the theatre has filled me. I want her to find satisfaction in hard work that is meaningful. Even if it's just piling branches in front of the house after a tough 6 days without power. Hard work is good for the soul.

The opportunity of failure

2009-01-26T06:12:00.004-06:00

I have had this idea floating around in my head for the past three days to write something about failure. Three times I started to blog and three times I failed as I got half way into it and stopped and deleted it.

I was thinking about the idea of failure and how to work through my thoughts this morning as I was making my coffee and I thought about President Obamas phrase that because of the failures of our economy and many of the issues that our country faces we have a historic opportunity. I let that phrase roll around in my mind.

These past couple of months I have witnessed how the people around me deal with the failure or the fear of failure. In my own family failure has been the driving force. In November my father's older brother died after his body failed to fight off a cancer. My uncle lived a wild life and at the end spent his last days trying to confess the failures of his life so that he could get himself right with God. In December my father fell of a ladder in his garage when a pile of lumber fell on him. He spent about 4 days in the hospital with broken bones and a fractured skull. His memory which was already a little shakey, took a "beating" as well. I witnessed as he failed to remember the details of the accident, his time in the hospital, and watched as he struggled to recover. As each doctor came into the hospital room to ask him what happened he kept saying that he failed to get out of the way of the falling boards. This past Monday my mother's older sister began the final process of dying. The doctors were failing to stop the process that began suddenly 2 weeks ago when she was admitted to the hospital. This weekend she died.

If I look at these past months from the point of failure I have witnessed the failing health of relatives and the medical communities response. But looking at the same events from a different vantage point I have found that my brother and my sisters have talked more in the past three months than we have in years. I've made a conscious effort to stay more in touch with my parents. Family through these failures have become more important to me. This is an opportunity to reconnect to people who I had taken for granted that would always be there and would always be able to take care of themselves.

This economy continues to falter. We see the ripples of that through every part of our community. In order to continue to operate difficult choices have to be made. Yet I find something positive in returning to find our what's really important and how to make that the focus.

I just held auditions last week and there were almost 70 people cast out of 150 who auditioned. For some they had exhilaration as were cast in a show for the first time or got the part that they were striving for. For others their disappointments were overwhelming. They felt hurt and angry at the their failure to get cast. Some who had never experienced not being cast felt their disappointment the most. Others accepted their disappointments and offered to get involved in other ways with the shows. Some will come overcome that disappointment and others will not.

Each time we select a season of plays I fear failure. It doesn't matter that I've helped produce over 400 plays at the theatre since I came to work there. In the back of my mind is always the question- Will this show be the one that fails? That sense of being a fraud, that I've only been lucky up to this point because I really don't know what I'm doing and I have to work that much harder to make sure that I don't fail runs rampant through myself and some of the most successful people I know. When we do a Beauty and the Beast, High School Musical, or Wizard of Oz it's like throwing a ball higher and higher in the air and trying to hit it. Each show presents a bigger risk of failure. Yet each show presents an opportunity to for me to grow as an artist.

Each failure or risk of failure is a challenge to us to grow. I'm reminded often of Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey. The person gets the call and sets out on a journey. At some point he will be tested. In this test he will have to journey down inside himself. He will have to fail to protect himself. In a sense the person who he was dies and for a period of time he is lost. But then he finds new strengths and is helped by the presence of a spirit or God to come back up out of the ground with a new understanding. He is resurrected. It is his journey to bring this new wisdom back to others to share. In the hero's journey he shares this until he gets the next call. For me that is the risk of failure and the opportunities it presents.

Stop Drop and Roll

2009-01-22T07:25:00.003-06:00

When I arrived home last night from work at about 8pm my wife and daughter were cuddled up asleep under a blanket watching television. I spoke to them for a few minutes and then heard a strange noise. I walked into the kitchen to investigate and found our yellow lab on her hind legs happily eating the blueberry muffins that were baked a couple of hours earlier out of the baking tray sitting on our stove. Then I followed a trail of chewed and ripped paper towel and toilet paper all the way down to the dogs crate. Apparently she had gotten bored and decided to go in search of something she could chew on. A swirl of anger and frustration only grew as I discovered more and more of Goldies adventures. I opened the back door and let the dog out in our invisible fenced yard so that I could clean up the mess without the dog trying to "help". It also gave me a chance to lower my blood pressure.

I find that phrase "lowering my blood pressure" to be more valuable the older I get. I don't suffer thankfully from high blood pressure which seems to run in my family. But I can feel myself at times of stress with this feeling, like steam, rising inside of me and going to my head making it feel like a pressure on my brain. At those times I can't help but think of that old fire prevention saying- stop, drop and roll. I try to stop. Drop the feelings that are building and take a walk.

The other night as I talked with family about how my father is doing after his accident we talked about the depression that he is experiencing. I discovered something about myself. I don't know if this is what makes me a better "theatre" person or not. I have a very strong ability to feel the emotions of others. To put myself in their position and see life through their eyes, to feel many of the same feelings that they are. I will confess that lots of movies make me tear up. Hearing a very emotional song can have the same effect. Watching someone else or reading about someone else or even imagining a situation can deeply affect me physically. My chest gets tight. That lump in the throat becomes very real. I can access deep emotional feelings connected to the pain or joy of others. When it comes to my own feelings however those tend to be much harder to access. I don't think I have the John Wayne syndrome that I grew up with. But I do find that when I face deep problems I go into a problem solving mode. What needs to be done. What are all the possible issues that will affect the decisions that need to be made. My brain locks into "solve the problem."

As I age I find myself like many others moving into a new place in life. In the past couple of months my family has dealt with the loss or impending loss of relatives. We have dealt with aging and disease issues. I don't know how I feel about all this but I certainly am aware of how others feel. At times I think it is a gift to be able to experience how other people feel and translate that into a plays characters or my writing. At other times I need to stop, drop, and roll. Or as my friend Jody likes to remind me- breathe, just breathe.

Middle of the story

2009-01-17T12:19:00.001-06:00

As is the always case, it seems I start watching films from somewhere in the middle. I flip on the television and the movie is in progress. The characters are always in the middle of some discovery. This particular film showed a man as he struggled with his identity independent of this family and at the same time formed by that same family. After the movie ended I flipped to a news channel to see what was happening in the world. The news was filled with the stories of a man about to be sworn in as President. Other stories were reported about the plane crash and its survivors. Still more stories about the war in the middle east.

We live our lives in the middle of stories. As I walked through the hospital yesterday we walked by the place where newborns are behind the glass so visitors can see them. These children are at the very beginning of their own lives but they too are in the midst of a story of a family. On another floor I stepped into a hallway where a young woman came out of room in great distress talking on the cell phone that they were disconnecting the machines from her loved one. We went to the children’s area saw young children in hospital beds with family gathered around. I was in the midst of all of the stories. I couldn’t help but think that we never get to see the beginning of a story.

My daughter asked me about what I was doing before I married her mother. I told her the stories of living in Kansas City working professionally, I told her the stories of Graduate School in Alabama, I told her the stories of being an undergraduate in Wisconsin. These stories define who I am. I couldn’t help but wonder if a small change here or there in life would have led me to this same present place? This brief moment in time? In the movie story we see a father, a mother, and a son who are all struggling with the choices they are making. During a moment from the movie a friend gives advice to the mother from a Joseph Campbell book. “When you feel the most lost, close your eyes and remember when you felt the happiest. Not the most ecstatic, just the most happiest. That is your bliss. That is the path to follow to find your way again. Follow your bliss.” I had always thought of that idea of bliss as finding the ecstatic highs in life. It struck me that maybe bliss was something different than I had originally thought.

At the end of the movie the son finds a book with an inscription to him from his recently deceased father on the day of his graduation from high school. The young man’s name came from the story contained in the book that defined who his father was and even who the young man had become. The mother simply states “there are no accidents” you were always meant to find this. At that moment he embraces his father’s gift.

As I contemplate the middle of my own story I can’t help but think of myself in relation to the other stories that I am a part of. In many ways I do feel that there are no accidents in life. There are mistakes, but we need to make those mistakes to guide us on to the next chapter in our story. I’ve had times myself when I was stuck in a chapter and couldn’t seem to turn the page.

When I close my eyes and think of happiness with these thoughts it isn’t the extremely high points of the story so far that come to mind. It surprises me that it is a much quieter sense of happiness that comes to mind. A larger story unfolds. I also feel extremely grateful that I have the opportunity to tell stories for a living. We are always in the middle of a story aren’t we?

time slipping away

2009-01-17T01:05:00.001-06:00

I have been running since Monday and haven't stopped yet. I intended to write 2-3 times a week on this blog but with weeks like this suddenly its late Friday night and the last time I posted was 4-5 days ago.

In the creative process, for me, it is usually best to brainstorm all the possibilities and then let them simmer for a little. It reminds me a pot of water on the stove. Ideas start small like tiny bubbles appearing at the bottom of the pot. Slowly they build until they bubble up to the surface and then reform. Lots of energy dissipates as the options reach the surface. When I was younger, as all the ideas and thoughts reached the "surface of the pot" I would easily turn that energy into action. But lately it seems the pot has to simmer longer in order to find the right answers.

I once had an artistic director tell an entire company that we were only putting on plays. We weren't curing cancer. People didn't die if we made mistakes. I thought that was a good way of looking at things. Unfortunately 2 weeks later that same Artistic Director fired the entire company instead of admitting his mistakes in budgeting and expenses for a show.

I have found that my best decisions are made when I let that "pot" simmer for a while before trying to make a decision. This isn't easy because lots of people are pushing me to make that decision and the clock is ticking with every moment. A former TD used to tell me that there were two ways of building sets. The fast way which is very expensive or the slow way which is much more cost effective but has to have the time to work out alternate solutions to the expensive problems.

Every time I rush into a decision I miss something else and then have to work twice as hard and spend twice as much to fix the problem.

I've rubbed my head so many times trying to work through a problem that it is now a signature gesture I make when problems arise and solutions have to arrived at in a short time frame. Those who know me as soon as they see me rub my head say "Michael is stressed". This week I've rubbed what little hair I had left on my head off.

Dog Dreams

2009-01-11T19:49:00.005-06:00

I journal in the morning when I first wake up. I sit down with my cup of coffee and commit myself to writing 3 pages hand written. As my mind is still blurry from sleep I always begin with what I dreamed last night. Over the years I've taught myself to remember my dreams and they usually give me some insight into what is going on with my life below the surface. I once read a quote from Jung that made the statement that of all things that your mind could conjure up at night it is usually not a result of random thoughts conjured up by the dinner that I ate the night before. Images and symbols come to be because they represent something my subconscious is processing on a deeper level.

For as many years as I can remember the majority of my dreams are always about traveling. Being on a journey to get some place. I never get there in my dreams. There are always lots of obstacles that I must confront during the journey and I always wake up before I reach my destination. It is these obstacles that give me insight into what I'm worried or angry or upset about. I can't begin to count the number of dreams in which I was renovating or rebuilding the Market House Theatre. Those dreams are pretty obvious. In my dreams I look for meaning and symbols. The more bizarre the symbol the better. I always remember the quote though that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

As I was sitting reading the script for the Wizard of Oz preparing for auditions the family dog was laying on the carpet next to me by the fire. Goldie was dreaming of something. Chasing an animal or running and leaping. Her little barks and paws moving in her sleep. I wonder if she is dreams of being on a journey. Head hanging out the window of a car. The wind in her face. Her tongue flapping in the breeze. Trying to get someplace but never quite getting there.

I wonder if some nights we could trade dreams. I wouldn't mind chasing squirrels and running through the woods. I'll let her rebuild the theatre while I run and play for a change. Who knows maybe I'll finally reach a destination?

Winter

2009-01-08T08:33:00.002-06:00

Winter does something to me. It always challenges me. I went out into the back yard the other night to let me dog out. Goldie refuses to do her business unless I’m standing in the back yard within about 20 feet of her. As I stood there I looked at a large tree in my back yard that was completely bare of leaves. It had a shape against the sky that called to my mind those ancient trees that have stood for centuries. The silhouette was not nicely rounded into a pleasing shape but filled with branches that were bent and angled and even curled back on themselves into large joints. Like an ancient witches fingers. The kind of limbs that artists love to draw. It reminded me of an old movie that I liked in college called Cat People about an ancient African tree and its mystical power. Behind the tree the sky was filled with large clouds rushing by over head. The wind wasn’t very strong on the ground where I was standing but overhead the clouds were moving in a urgent flight.

I wished that I could draw a picture of this tree at night or take a photo or a video of this scene. The clouds were rushing off either to face something in the east or fleeing from something in the west the way animals flee from a forest fire. It felt like there was a war about to begin and that the forces from one side were rushing to the front while others were fleeing from the coming battle. It is hard not to be swept one way or the other.

There are a dozen projects that I’m working on at the present and sometimes it feels like those clouds. Everyone is giving advice, pushing me in one direction or another. I’m being tossed about by business planning models and artistic statements of truth. Each time in the past I’ve been able to overcome the challenges through hard work and perseverance. Keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the goals. It seems harder with each passing year to resist the forces pushing from all sides and stay focused. The winds wanting to rush to the front for the battle. Wanting to win the battle and declare victory. But there never seems to be any victory. Just a brief rest before the next battle. I’ve always told myself if I can just get through this, then everything will be okay. Peace will finally come. But peace has been elusive. Accomplish one goal and a dozen more line up to take its place.

I’m reminded of the old farmer who plows the field in the midst of a war raging all around him. He has seeds to sow and planting that needs to be accomplished. Wars will continue to come and go. Battles will be fought on all sides of him. He no longer runs off to battle with each new threat. He continues to the till the ground. To prepare the earth for something new to grow. When he was young he dropped everything and ran to the front with the others. He has known intense love and honor and glory. But those things don't last long, they come and go on the currents of the wind.

Only one thing is certain. Winter will come again next year and the field will need to be prepared for growth. No matter how big his harvest at the end of the previous year, Winter will come again.

That is where I find myself after so many years. In the midst of winter preparing to till the ground for another year.

Mystical Moments

2009-01-05T22:05:00.000-06:00

As I was sitting in my EFM class today the discussion was about mystics. Burning bushes and other events that happen to declare the presence of God to human beings. The question was asked by the moderator of the group if such an event could happen today. People claim to see the face of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in a biscuit or a water stain on a wall. I remember a story about a man who purchased a potato chip for hundreds of dollars because it had the image of Jesus in it.

Some people can only see God if it shows up and smacks them in the face and they can show it to others to prove it. Some people I believe truly do have an experience of the mystical out of the blue where the presence of God is flash of light or a sudden appearance of an image that is suddenly life changing but they keep it to themselves because they can’t explain it.

I must confess that I’ve never had an experience like this. But I have had mystical experiences.

There are times in life when a greater truth becomes suddenly clear. It’s almost as if you have a moment where you see life as a whole instead from our narrow vantage points. A profound truth becomes apparent. Sometimes it’s only a moment of seeing life clearly without all the thoughts pushing your mind. It happens for just a moment and then fades. If you are like me it is really hard to hang on to that moment. The everyday world seems to come rushing back with all of its distractions and noises and within a day or so I’ve forgotten all about that moment. Except that it happened. Some people are able to find these mystical moments through meditation. Some people are able to experience this through prayer. For me I find it when I listen to the silence. This was a term I learned a few years ago. Like the air that we breathe that goes in and out of us unseen and sustains our lives. We move through the air and it fills the spaces all around us. Silence does this for me. This is not space empty of or devoid of sound, but a silence that has its own fullness. The everyday sounds of life layer on top of this silence. I like to think of this silence as the place where God speaks. It is not filled with words or noises but with clarity. This is how I pray. Not with words formed in my mind but with a quiet that listens.

I try to hang onto moments from the holidays which I remember that silence. Moments spent alone in the hospital room with my father in the middle of the night as the snow fell silently outside and he struggled with his injuries and between the present and the past in his memory. The door to the room was closed and the hospital sounds in the hallway were quiet. Even the ventilation system was quiet. I heard the silence. I try to hang on to moments with my daughter as we trekked through over 2 feet of snow in the totally silent farm fields in the country on a winters day walk. The only sound was the snow crunching under my feet as my daughter tried to follow in my footsteps. I finally stopped to carry her on my back through an especially high drift. We stopped for a moment and looked at the horizon across acres of snow white farm fields that seemed to stretch forever. I listened to the silence. After a few moments we continued our trek. I knew I had just listened to God.

Those are my mystical moments.

parents and work

2009-01-04T19:56:00.000-06:00

I read an interesting chapter in Outlier by Malcom Gladwell about the most successful lawyers and professionals today. The author traced back and found that most of the successful professionals came from a family where the parents worked in jobs that showed that hard work and initiative could change their lives.

I couldn't help but think about my own family. My paternal grandfather worked as a carpenter in the depression. My father dropped out of school in about the 8th grade and worked a series of jobs including picking cotton as a migrant worker for cents on the pound. Eventually he left Alabama and found a job as a machinist and worked there for 40 years. As I was growing up my father worked a second job nights and weekends hanging drapes for Sears and for some of the other women who sewed the drapes for the local Sears store. My parents saw that with a little bit of investment and initiative they could start their own business on the side. My mother went back to school with 4 kids at home and got her associates degree in interior decorating. Then she and my father went into part time business doing drapes and shades. My parents set up a sewing room in the basement. My mother during the day would visit people in their homes showing fabric samples. Then my mother would order the fabric and then she would sew the drapes. My father would hang the rods and drapes after he got home from working at the factory and on weekends. My father worked 2 jobs for over 30 years.

Since I was old enough to work I've always worked hard. My first summer job was for a neighbor, delivering 50 pound sacks of potatoes and produce from a truck for 25 cents and hour. At the end of a 12 hour day I remember thinking I was rich because I had earned $3. Of course that was 1969. My second job I got by walking up to the high school kid who was the paper boy on my street that fall and talked him into taking me on as his assistant for 50 cents a day. When he gave up the route a year later it was mine and I delivered to over 80 homes by walking 16 blocks. I was always raised thinking that the harder I worked the more I was rewarded.

My father was never afraid of tackling almost any project. If he needed to do an engine overhaul he would check out a manual from the public library and study it and then go out and do it.

Although he never said it I was always aware that he always regretted dropping out of school. When I was in Junior High School my dad took correspondence courses along with working two jobs trying to get his GED. He never quite was able to complete all the courses to get his degree but he taught me a lot about what was important in life.

As my father struggles with his health and his memory I find it important for me to remember what he taught me. Hopefully I can pass some of the most valuable lessons I learned from both my mother and father on to my child.

I got the nicest compliment last month from one of the teenagers who has been very involved at the theater. They said I have been a role model for them. That was a real honor for me but also scared me a little. I've never thought of myself as a role model. I was always the rebel in life who bucked the system and asked the questions that were uncomfortable. But I guess some of my father has rubbed off on me. For that I will always be grateful.

Tents

2009-01-02T11:03:00.000-06:00

I've been working yesterday and today entering all my financial transactions into Quicken so I can prepare to do my taxes. I took a break and checked my email. I received several responses to my face book posting about hanging a fairy tent up in my daughters room. For several it brought back memories of their children, both boys and girls, and their tent making days. Over the course of the last several years my daughter has collected a series of tents. There is something magical about tents. Even ones made from chairs with blankets thrown over the tops.

We started with the pup tent that set up with the sticks that formed the frame and then anchored at the sides. That proved to be a little more complicated to set up than we originally imagined. We then added the tent in a bag which when you pull it out of the bag it almost knocks you over with its spring loaded frame that makes a small tent fully formed. No assembly required. Getting it folded up and back in the bag requires yoga positions and lighting fast reflexes as it seems to have a mind of its own and doesn't want to be folded back up. Much to my daughters delight. Some of my favorite photos are of my daughter and her friends at age 4 with their heads sticking out of that tent. We went through a short phase with the ball pit in a tent. (That was one of those gifts that kids love and parents cringe. Of course the child thinks its fun to throw the balls everywhere. I think we still find them occasionally in stuff and we've moved since we owned that tent!) We then moved up to a real umbrella tent which was purchased for a Brownie party at our house. They wanted to simulate camping. I've generally been the assembler and disassembler however April and Jade were able to set it up for Jade's last sleep over. However putting it away is the difficult part. It never seems to want to go back in the bag. Sounds familiar. So naturally I have to put it away. Of course the tents are never set up outside. They are always inside the house. Jade and her friend didn't sleep in the tent. They just wanted to play in it.

Only once did I set the tent up in the back yard. It was 2 summers ago. I had promised Jade to go camping but we never could find a good weekend to go. As the summer wound down it was the back yard or nothing and I could already hear the whine about "you promised!" I cooked hamburgers on the grill and we roasted marshmallows over the fire pit and put sleeping bags inside the tent with a camp light to play cards by. April was too smart to join in the camping fun. I forgot what it was like to sleep on the ground with only a sleeping bag for a mattress. My back was sore for 2 days.

Of all the tents Jade's favorite is a little princess castle with four sides and an open top and bottom. Jade will set it up and then fill it with pillows for the floor. She proceeds to put blankets over the top of the castle to make a ceiling and then put all of her stuffed animals inside. This I have found is her comfort tent. When she isn't feeling well or wants to snuggle this is where she goes. Usually when I find her in her comfort tent there is the plea for Dad to join her. I try the usual excuses of there isn't any room but after a couple more pleas I'm on my hands and knees crawling in through the little door and trying to stay as curled up as I can to fit in until my joints just can't take it anymore.

While we were in Wisconsin there was almost 3 feet of snow on the ground. Jade and I spent part of a couple of days building forts in the snow. All the other cousins were teenagers and saw the snow more as an obstacle than as an adventure. So I was the designated playmate. At one point we were trekking over a tall drift on a hillside and I fell over and I couldn't get back up. The snow was too deep for me to get anything to push on to stand up. I ended up rolling down a hill on my side until I found firmer ground. Jade thought this was hilarious.

This week Jade turned 10 and our neighbor's grandchildren are visiting from New Orleans. They have two girls within a year or two of Jade's age. The girls favorite past time yesterday and today is to play in the wooded section behind our yard and to make a fort. Jade has elaborate plans that after their fort building they will all come in for a tea party. April is out shopping for peach tea which is a must for the party. I've promised to brew the tea in my teapot I bought while I was in China. If I don't get these financials finished I'll run out of time.

I'd much rather build a fort.

New Year

2009-01-01T11:53:00.000-06:00

I start my New Year like so many years past with a continued journey of discovery.

I've got several books in progress all geared towards different ways of thinking. I'm reading Malcolm Gladwells new book Outliers about the people and forces around successful people. I've read his last couple of books the Tipping Point and Blink. Both I found very good. I'm also reading Tribes by Seth Godin. Godin has written the Purple Cow and Meatball Sundae. He is a marketing person with lots of interesting ideas as well.

I'm in the 4th year of the Education for Ministry classes from the Sewanee Theological Seminary. This is part of the Episcopal church. This is a class for lay people who want further education in understanding their faith. Each year is setup on the school year calendar with weekly classes from Sept. through May. The first year is a study of the Hebrew Bible (The Old Testatment). The second year is a study of The New Testatment. The third year is early Church history and theology. The fourth and final year is a study of modern church history and theology. It has been fascinating for me to see the seeds for our modern thinking about faith and about lifes big issues. This fourth year we have studied such figures as Kierkagard and Hegel who really changed not only the ideas of faith but of modern thought. Currently I'm reading about the world events leading up to World War I and modern theology at the time.

I've came to my "faith journey" from walking away from the church in my teenage years. I found myself constantly at odds with the "popular" Christian message. Working in the theatre with a wide variety of people and putting on plays (telling stories) about the meaning of life I now see was a spiritual journey of its own. I read every book I could get my hands on from the study of the Kabbalah of Judaism to teachings of Buddhism through the Bagvahd Gita, to Islamic teachings of Rumi. The more I learned the more I was consumed by it. But these last few years I've rediscovered the faith I was raised with and surprisingly found that many of the ideas I found so refreshing in other faiths were present in the Christian faith.

A rabbi tells the story that that God created understanding and the truth and then Satan seeing this came along behind God and created religion to confuse it.

An Muslim Imam tells the story of an old man who set out one morning to find God. First he went to a Christian Church, but God was not there. Then he went to a Jewish Temple, but God was not there. Finally he went to an Islamic Mosque, but God was not there. Saddened he returned home. He looked into his own heart and found God waiting for him.

Being a part of theatre for so many years has really been journey for me. Working on plays that ask questions about love and honor. About the integrity and betrayal. About relationships. These are the big questions of faith. If there is such a thing I guess I have become a "theatre priest". Celebrating lifes ups and mourning lifes downs. Selecting stories that have something to say about our journey of life.

I found myself thinking about this the other day as I watched the snow fall in Wsconsin outside the windows of the hospital I was visiting my father in. Each snowflake is totally unique. Yet together they all make snow. (In Wisconsin they had 30 inches of it!) As I walked the halls of the hospital I saw so many unique people each with a challenge to face. Yet I couldn't help but feel very connected to them and feeling like I was sharing something universal.

As I stopped in the restaurants and stores and drove back from Wisconsin I looked with a greater appreciation at the waitress at the Denny's we stopped at, the store clerk at the gas station, the mom with 2 teenagers and the dad with the 3 kids all in tow. As I read scripts for play selection at the theatre and watch movies on tv I'm constantly reminded that each life is unique yet we all share the need for similar things. I am constantly rediscovering a deeper appreciation and gratitude for the mystery of life and all of the people who journey through it with me.

That is what my journey of faith has taught me as I continue down this path my life has taken. I stopped looking for God or meaning in a place of worship or a kind of theology or even a career. I found God, in whatever name you want to call him, by looking at the people around me, by looking with my heart and not just my eyes.

Happy New Year.

the return

2008-12-29T14:41:00.000-06:00

I wanted to write this blog so that I could put down many of my personal feelings that don't necessarily relate to my job as director of the theatre. I've journaled for many years and the act of writing things down helps me to sort through things when I'm not sure. My personal journals are never meant to be read by anyone but me. This however is meant to be shared. I don't know why I feel the need to share but there you have it.

Coming back home is always an adventure after a week away. This week has been especially tough. My father fell last Saturday. He is 77 and is still very active. He is a pack rat at heart and can't walk by anything that someone else has thrown away that might still have value. If it is a piece of wood or a tool that might have a use he collects it. My mother goes for walks with him and has told him more than once as he picked up a piece of something from someones trash pile that she won't walk him with him carrying that piece.

This past week as he was trying to get one of his pieces of wood out of the attic of their garage he fell off a ladder attached to the studs on the garage wall. We don't know all the details but somehow he broke his elbow, the bone under his eye and fractured his skull which caused bleeding that collected inside his scalp on the other side of his head. He remembers very little of the whole thing. My mother was gone to the grocery store and returned to find blood on the kitchen floor. She found my father in a chair in the living room curled up on one side with a bloody sweatshirt on. He said he didn't feel good and had taken an aspirin. His trip to the hospital, then the drive up to the trauma center and a stay in the intensive care unit and finally his return home has all happened within the past week. It will take him several weeks to recover.

The thing I will remember most was Monday night. I arrived at the hospital about 9:00 am Monday morning. They moved my father to a private room about noon and I and my mother and sister stayed with him until 6 pm when my sister took my mother back home (about an hour and a half drive away). I prepared for a long night sitting by my fathers bed side and reminding him in the moments when he was awake where he was and what had happened to him. I also stood guard so that he wouldn't get out of bed for any reason. During the night he woke up for about an hour and we talked about his childhood. He got confused as to where we were and what had happened. He confused me with his recently deceased brother and we talked about "our" adventures as kids. It was really tough to sit by the side of his bed and watch my father struggle with his pain and his memory and yet this was probably the most time I've spent with him without distractions in the past several years. My father has been diagnosed with early Alzheimer's and while he is still very high functioning I can clearly see the disease is taking its toll each visit I have with him.

I feel helpless at times being so far away. It is a 7 hour drive to visit my parents and my job doesn't allow a lot of time for trips. My daughter Jade is also 7 hours away from her grandparents and she won't get to know them other than the short trips we take twice a year to see them. As I grew up my grandparents lived in different states as well. I'm envious of those who have parents and grandparents nearby and a regular part of their lives. At the same time my parents by living at a distance from their families were often spared the jealousies and dramas that affected both of my parents families. Who wasn't speaking to who and who had taken something from someone else. I'm fortunate that my siblings and I don't have those issues. Families always seem to have that paradox- a source of comfort and conflict all rolled into one.

Still I was reminded about my distance on that snowy Monday night sitting in a hospital room in Milwaukee as my father spoke of his childhood.