Monthly Archives: April 2010

Growing Up Into Dreams

Last night, I made a proclamation.

“Tomorrow, I grow up.”

It’s a Facebook Status kind of thing to say.   Is it true?  Will I grow up today?  On the one hand, each day is a growing up into responsibility and freedom.    Demands grow, stakes go up, opportunities present themselves with alarming swiftness and fickle timing.   Our mistakes get bigger, have weightier, longer-playing consequences, and we can cry in our beer or we can stand up and do the heavy lifting being “grown up” seems to require.  We progress like bull and bear markets, inching up, sliding back, making huge gains, crashing on Black Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Growing up has been painful, and will probably remain so.  (Big deal, so was playing football.)  I’ve wept in frustration many times in my life, cursing the brutal frankness of life’s unrelenting demands.  Come hell, death, or high water, life just keeps coming.  Incessant, the water torture, the constancy of that frickin’ obstacle (whatever it happens to be) that daily bars the way to the big pie in the sky.   And the pie is an illusion anyway, right?  So what is all about, and why should I grow up at all?   Is it really the most awful, awful thing?  We see such promise around us in young people, and yet those of us who’ve lived awhile know the depressing commonness of the best and brightest landing somewhere far below the early buzz about their (terrible word) “potential.”

But as I whine about all this, a voice somewhere inside says, “Grow up.”

Maybe someone needs to stand up for “growing up.”  After all, it’s the grown-ups who make not only the darkness of the world (easy to saddle them with that), but the light as well.  It’s the grown-ups who have to protect the children, make the art, fix the injustice, stop the nuts who kill lots of folks in a row, battle over what “good” really means in both culture and law, and generally make all the worlds the children walk in.   And, by the way, it’s a grown-up thing to do to learn to protect the now-proverbial “inner child” (there’s a term to generate a snicker) that still lives inside, still needs the nurture of the adult.   Does growing up by definition mean the death of the child, Peter Pan notwithstanding?   What if the child is the one who does the growing up, and thereby retains the possibility of remaining present, vital, and alive?   “Growing up” does not, by definition, mean the loss of imagination, the loss of play, or the loss of freedom.  In fact, the more heavy-lifting the grown-up does (in terms of shouldering the necessary responsibilities), the stronger she becomes, and the freedom to fully realize the dreams of the child grows.

And dreams are grown-up things.   Giftedness, vision, hope, possibility–these require grown-up words like commitment, accountability, determination, and courage.   Otherwise, all the great stuff of childhood descends into shrinking, crippling fantasy.   A child-like heart fully grown is a very different reality than a grown-up’s self-centered, childish heart.   The latter acts like a two-year-old and makes nothing.   The former works with an intensity that only be described as full-out, full heart play, and makes new worlds every day.

Yesterday, I wrote of creating spaces and experience wherein people could tangibly encounter the invitation to transformation, and gain a bit more faith that it was actually possible.

That’s a grown up thing to do.

Today…

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“Transformation is Possible”

My coaching assignment from three weeks ago was to reflect on what I’d like people to say about me when I die.

My report on that reflection is due today, and frankly, though I’ve put a good bit of time into thinking about it, I don’t have it done.  It’s a funny question, more troublesome than I anticipated.

My reflection goes in several directions.  Someone in my family said of my father when he died, “He was the best man I ever knew.”  I’d take that one, if someone wanted to say it, no matter how untrue it might be.  My uncle meant it when he said it, and I think it was true.  My father was a good man, a servant, a simple man.   He was a student of the Bible, a man who wanted to get it right when it came to following God.  These are good things to be said about you when you die.   So yes, I’d take all those.

Last night, I watched This Is It, the film documenting Michael Jackson’s preparation for the tour he never got to do.  I think of all the things people say about him.  A superstar who just wanted to be loved, the things said about him at his death are endless, most likely (I haven’t researched this) trending toward his gifts as a performer and pop artist, as well toward the tragic pain he experienced most of his life.  Wonder and sadness, a strange lost light burning intensely for the enjoyment of us all.

We all die, the common and the famous, the tragic and the greats.  I’ll die, far closer to common, and people will gather and talked in hushed tones, I suppose.  That’s what you do at these moments.  What do I want them to say?

How would you answer it for yourself?

Ultimately, I hope they reflect on themselves, and perhaps a moment of connection between us.   A moment of personal connection, or professional, where we encountered each other in either family, friendship, or art-making and receiving, and as a result of that encounter and connection, whether it was for a moment or a long time, they somehow came to understand something different about themselves, their lives, and the love, presence, and beauty of God.   The title of this post came to me as I pulled up to the coffee shop; I  hope someone will say that Jeff always wondered about what it meant to be transformed at the deepest levels of the heart.   That he asked and answered the question, “Is change really possible?”   Perhaps they’ll reflect on the imperfect progress I made on my own personal journey of heart transformation, but it would be really cool, and of far greater importance, if they observed that in Jeff’s life and work, he created spaces and experiences where possibility, hope, and transformation grew tangible, no longer questions but invitations that stand eternally open.

“From glory to glory” scripture says, and at my core, I know that life is dense with glory and possibility beyond our wildest dreams.   The mystery is how it all happens, and the fits and starts we take as we travel.   And at the end, I hope someone says he traveled in risky faith, constantly leaning against his essential brokenness (shared with the world), and found his way to that elusive grace called the compassion of the Christ, and created in life and art images–incarnations–of possibility, of real change, and of love.   Say that he treasured his family, his friends, and his work, and the God whose grace made every moment possible, and that he worked hard to attune himself to the deep beauty of the world.

But after all that, I have to also confess that I don’t really care what people say when I die.   The only voice that will matter will be that of my Father.   How amazing to perhaps have Him say something like what my character in Brooklyn Boy heard at the end of the play.     My character’s father told him, “It was a good book you wrote, Ricky.”

“It was a good life you lived, Jeff.  I liked it.”

If my Father said something like that, that would be enough…

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“Places”

Each night I stand backstage pacing back and forth, running a small ritual that has become important to me as a preparation for a coming night of emotional journeying.  The role of Eric Weiss in Brooklyn Boy is a challenging one, one that I relate to all too well.   And then, inevitably, my friend Carla comes to me and says the word, “Places.”

“Places” is the call to be ready.  It means that an important moment has arrived.  Time to make an entrance in full view of an audience, an audience with expectation, hope, demands, and a low tolerance for boredom and poor work.  Whatever I do, at the end of the night, they’ll applaud, but whether my work impacts or moves their collective heart is another question.  And that depends largely on my own preparation, skill, willingness, and presence.  Admittedly, some nights are better than others, and there are moments in a “Places” call where I wish I was anywhere but where I am.   Maybe its been a bad day, or someone’s critique has gotten into my head, or the general angst that’s been in my DNA since day one is just reminding me that though faith in God is mostly a fine idea, sometimes it seems more ludicrous than sane.

The bad days don’t come nearly as often as they used to, and the other night, after Carla gave her smiling “Places” call, I thought how wonderful it would be if someone would show up just before all the big moments in our lives, the life-changing ones, and say, “Places.”  In effect, they’d be saying, “This is one of the moments when you really need to show up.  All your days up to now have been rehearsals, and in the next five minutes, you are going into the bright lights.  Get your cues, keep the energy, stay alive, be present, and leave it all out there.  Oh, and have fun.”

My daughter Amy just got a places call that was both metaphor and fact, and she nailed it.

After four years of study at the University of Cincinnati College of Conservatory of Music Depart of Drama (that’s a mouthful), she graduates in June with a BFA in Acting.   Monday and Tuesday, her “Places” call was for a two and half minute scene in New York City, a small portion of an actor’s showcase featuring some 44 actors in 90 minutes.   Industry types come to these things–agents, managers, producers, etc.   They’re looking for new talent, and it goes by in a whiz.   And while no one moment is make or break (we talked about that a lot–there are multiple ways into getting work in the long haul), this felt like a big one.  You have to perform under pressure, and I was a bit nervous as I watched her first come on.

No need for nervousness, this girl knows what she’s doing.   In fact, hats off to the training at CCM-Drama.   Their entire class did strong work down the line…real, vital, intimate, and risky.   Kudos to them all. And though I don’t have many details yet, sounds like the industry response was strong, and they all have meetings lined up with various agencies interested in their work.

As a father, I could not be more proud of her work.   But I am far more proud of her response to the “Places” call that is coming into her life.   She is ready, and bold, and brave.  You can imagine my emotion as I type the words.   It’s a father’s love, a father who was there for her first “Places” call, when she first showed up in that spectacular entrance called birth.    The lights are never brighter than when we make entrances into relationship, into the heartbreak of the lives around us, into the spaces where God waits to watch and participate, which I suppose is always and everywhere.   When are we not at “Places”?

My time watching my kids at “Places” makes me think of our Father, and the way He must watch us, nervous, pulling for us, coming alongside however we will let Him, wanting nothing for us but the kind of performance that makes for full, generous, and vital worlds.

Sun’s up.

“Places, please.”

Way to go, girl…

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The Camera Comes Out

There is such joy in wandering around with my camera.  Somehow it inspires…florals today, maybe portraits soon…

Enjoy…

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Impressions on a Good Friday

Fat Tuesday and Good Friday are both preludes.

You’d think I must have chosen to give up blogging for Lent.  Not one entry after Fat Tuesday.  Nothing of the glorious Ash Wednesday experience, that annual marker of remembering that death is coming for all of us, that we are made of ashes and dust and to ashes and dust we will return.   Nothing of the giving up of bread, the failure to keep the Lenten fast perfectly, and the ongoing tension of how fasting from anything anytime reveals the cracks in our character.   Nothing of this season of acting, the appearance in Taproot Theatre’s Brooklyn Boy, and the ridiculous parallels to my own life my character has to live through.  Nothing of the making of two visual art pieces for this year’s Stations of the Cross exhibit (from which I am writing even now), the quiet loss of time as I glue rose petals and write metallic words on a black frame not meant for that at all.   Nothing of my daughter’s return home after finishing her classes in college–I mean all her classes, as in she is finished, save the showcases in New York and Los Angeles that will provide a gateway to her future, regardless of what happens.   Nothing of my migrating faith, my knowledge and dreams of God, Christ, and the Spirit ever moving, like the tides my friend Jeffrey speaks of.

But no, I didn’t fast from blogging.  But my lack of writing tells me something.  I wish I could say it meant I was quiet inside, that is was about having nothing to say because all was right with the world.

I don’t think that’s it.

Unrest is more like it.

So now, here as the world goes back to it’s 8 a.m. trading, I sit encased in a dark room, surrounded by images of Christ and his death.  Crosses, faces of Christ, thorns, rose petals, candles, photographs of modern people pretending to be ancient,  and the sounds of cars whizzing along in the rain just outside these doors.   The room opened at 7:00 a.m. and except for the person who came to help monitor the room for the first hour, I am alone.   Once around the path already, the stations each spoke to me, made me reflect on the essential drama of the story.   Christ was betrayed and killed.   It’s old news, really.   Familiarity of over 2000 years blunts the shock of it.   I look at images of a man executed, his corpse strung up on a crossbar, muscle and bone exposed by the penetration of heavy, rusty spikes.   Blood everywhere, stink pervasive, dark and rain and filth oozing over the earth.    Barry Moser in the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible does it as well as anyone, and I look at the images, and wonder how in the world to enter in.

How do we enter into death?

There’s a squalling storm blowing through the Puget Sound today.   Cold creeps in, and a few of the candles didn’t want to stay lit, wavering in a draft.   He’s dead, Jesus is.  At least on this day, that’s the way to tell the story.   We want to get to Sunday, but it’s not Sunday yet.  No resurrection, not even a hope of it, if you were the disciples that Friday.  Judas killed himself.  Who can blame him?  A terrible, terrible day.

I get it, but how strange to make a world where blood and death are the deepest–perhaps the only–pathways to beauty.

Sometimes I wonder…

Standing at the foot of the cross, what else is there to do?

Did God just die?

Some say yes…some say no…

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