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?
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
making a two cent donation
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.
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.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Indian Summer
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.
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.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Disappointment
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.
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.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Question
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?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The modern plague
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..
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..
Sunday, September 27, 2009
An emotional experience
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.
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.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Animal plotting
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!
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!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
writing
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...
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...
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Uncle Ray
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.
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.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Past Present and Future
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...
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...
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Rain
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.
..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
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.
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.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Secrets in the Dark
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.
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.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Perfection
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.
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.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Remembered for
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?
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?
Monday, June 8, 2009
Sermon for June 7th
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
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
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Here am I
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".
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".
Thursday, May 7, 2009
universal versus unique
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.
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.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Simple life
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.
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.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
clean slate
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....
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....
Monday, April 20, 2009
dogwoods
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.
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.
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