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...
Saturday, July 25, 2009
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
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