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....
Thursday, April 30, 2009
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.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
growing up
I've just returned from vacation. While I was on vacation I purchased a couple of books to add to the couple that I brought with me to read while sitting on the beach or on the balcony in the morning with my coffee. The staff gave me a gift card to Books a Million and I used it to purchase two books. One of the books was by Diana Butler Bass on the Peoples History of Christianity. Butler Bass is a favorite author and speaker after I read her last book and listened to her at a couple of Emergent conferences. Her explanation of post-modern Christianity is really great. The other book I purchased was called 50 things to do when you turn 50. It has advice from all sorts of different well known people. A couple of my favorites were Garrison Keeler's and a playwright who writes in English and Spanish.
After arriving Saturday evening we went out on the beach on Sunday. I made the mistake of letting Jade spray my legs with sun screen. It was overcast and only in the mid 60's. I developed a huge sun burn from the inside of my right knee down across my shin in shape of a giant S. For the next couple of days I applied as much aloe as possible. It wasn't until the following Wednesday that we finally got back on the beach because of cold and wind. When we did I took great care to make sure that I sprayed my own sunscreen. As I sat on the beach reading my book I was worried about getting another sun burn and having to suffer through that. I decided to keep my T shirt on to protect all that "white" untouched by sun skin. As I joked to a friend "I live in a theatre cave and only come out once a year to get some sun."
Maybe it was reading the book about living in your 50's, maybe it was just a little bit of wisdom while I watched all of the 20 somethings walk by me with various shades of sunburns and exposed skin, maybe it was watching April suffer from sun burn for the same days that I did. I realized something. I didn't have to be 20 anymore and worry about whether I got a tan. The only person who was going to see me with my shirt off was going to be my wife. She was more sunburned than I was. I always felt the need to take that shirt off to get that tan. As soon as I decided that keeping my T-shirt on would made me worry less about getting too much sun and enjoy more sitting reading my book and looking at the ocean. That may seem like a no brainer to some people but to me it was a real sign of being okay with my age.
One of the other quotes in the 50 things book is that after you turn 50 its time to stop complaining about getting older. You either embrace the challenges that life presents you after 50 or you withdraw from them. I'm hoping that I embrace the challenges. A second book I purchased while on vacation was the Power of Less by Leo Babauta. I don't know if it was the chance to sit back for a little and reflect but I did find myself thinking about where I wanted to be when I hit that next milestone of 60. With my life and my job I find the need to limit myself to the essential becomes more and more important. I can't do everything that I used to and what's surprising sometimes for me is that I don't need to or want to.
So as I was hit by the avalanche of work awaiting me on my return Friday I'm trying to hang onto just a little bit of the beach. I miss hearing the ocean at night. April has a sound machine to help her sleep with the ocean but its just not the same!
After arriving Saturday evening we went out on the beach on Sunday. I made the mistake of letting Jade spray my legs with sun screen. It was overcast and only in the mid 60's. I developed a huge sun burn from the inside of my right knee down across my shin in shape of a giant S. For the next couple of days I applied as much aloe as possible. It wasn't until the following Wednesday that we finally got back on the beach because of cold and wind. When we did I took great care to make sure that I sprayed my own sunscreen. As I sat on the beach reading my book I was worried about getting another sun burn and having to suffer through that. I decided to keep my T shirt on to protect all that "white" untouched by sun skin. As I joked to a friend "I live in a theatre cave and only come out once a year to get some sun."
Maybe it was reading the book about living in your 50's, maybe it was just a little bit of wisdom while I watched all of the 20 somethings walk by me with various shades of sunburns and exposed skin, maybe it was watching April suffer from sun burn for the same days that I did. I realized something. I didn't have to be 20 anymore and worry about whether I got a tan. The only person who was going to see me with my shirt off was going to be my wife. She was more sunburned than I was. I always felt the need to take that shirt off to get that tan. As soon as I decided that keeping my T-shirt on would made me worry less about getting too much sun and enjoy more sitting reading my book and looking at the ocean. That may seem like a no brainer to some people but to me it was a real sign of being okay with my age.
One of the other quotes in the 50 things book is that after you turn 50 its time to stop complaining about getting older. You either embrace the challenges that life presents you after 50 or you withdraw from them. I'm hoping that I embrace the challenges. A second book I purchased while on vacation was the Power of Less by Leo Babauta. I don't know if it was the chance to sit back for a little and reflect but I did find myself thinking about where I wanted to be when I hit that next milestone of 60. With my life and my job I find the need to limit myself to the essential becomes more and more important. I can't do everything that I used to and what's surprising sometimes for me is that I don't need to or want to.
So as I was hit by the avalanche of work awaiting me on my return Friday I'm trying to hang onto just a little bit of the beach. I miss hearing the ocean at night. April has a sound machine to help her sleep with the ocean but its just not the same!
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