The Elephant in the Room

I’d been holding off on a particular issue because it seemed too political and divisive. But I just can’t avoid it anymore. I’m referring to the mass shooting crisis that has been afflicting the US for some time now.

I know that some will stop their ears when I assert that more gun control is needed, and I don’t mean to impugn every gun owner in the country. I personally know several responsible gun owners (although I am admittedly not one). However, at the time I write this there have been 355 mass shootings in this country this year.

How have we allowed this to happen? Gun violence in the US dwarfs that of all other countries on earth – developed or not. And over the last decades we have actually relaxed gun control laws that were enacted in the 80s and 90s. The cynical side of me would say that we are reaping what we sowed. And maybe we are. But can’t we do something about it? With every mass shooting, the left calls for stricter gun laws, and the right says that more good guys with guns will stop bad guys with guns.

Big surprise here, but I have to agree with the left on this. I would never advocate the rounding up of citizens’ firearms that the NRA and others seems to fear (although it has gotten to the point that maybe that should be on the table). We have all heard the calls for tighter background checks, waiting periods, etc. What is the gun lobby afraid of here? You don’t hear automobile enthusiasts crying for looser licensing for drivers. Fortunately, some responsible gun owners are calling for reasonable regulation. But they seem to be overwhelmed by the gun lobby. We already have more than one firearm per capita in the US (112.6 per every 100 persons, according to a Washington Post article from October 2015). Do we really need more?

I know, I know: THE SECOND AMENDMENT! The Second Amendment of the Constitution has been waved as the ultimate protection for gun ownership in the US. And don’t get me wrong – I fully appreciate the liberties protected in the Bill of Rights (although the anti-establishment clause of the First Amendment seems to be conveniently forgotten at times). A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Here’s the problem I – and others – see: in the 18^th century, as our country was just being born, there was no standing US Army. That’s why that whole phrase, right up to “ . . . the right of the people . . . ” was used. We needed a well-armed citizenry to “provide for the common defense,” as the Preamble so beautifully puts it.

Well, we now have the best equipped and trained military force in the world (something that was probably unimaginable in 1787!). So the common defense is pretty well provided for. Besides which, what about the current state of guns in America is "well regulated"? And enough already about the need to be protected from our own government. If I ever feel threatened by my own government, I’ll leave the country. (This is why Syrians and others flee their own countries and come here; they want to be somewhere that isn’t threatening!)

After each of these horrible massacres, politicians offer up "prayers for the victims and their families." I'm all for that; goodness knows they need our prayers and support. But if all we do is say these words, well intentioned or not, they ring pretty hollow.

We had better start doing something.

 

The Nature of Sin

I have long been interested in quantum physics. Please don’t read that to say that I understand quantum physics; I have only a rudimentary knowledge of the basics. It’s just that since I was a little boy who loved A Wrinkle in Time, 2001, and The Martian Chronicles, I hoped for and sought something to prove, or at least explain, seeming mysteries. As an avid reader of sci-fi and fantasy, I never needed the scientific the scientific explanations for things I couldn’t grasp. However, I find those a-ha moments very satisfying, when some theory or proof emerges that supports something that I felt in my gut.

Sad to say, on the other hand, many with fundamentalist worldviews don’t have much time for the scientific explanations of things. They have their traditions, their scriptures, their holy leaders – and science be damned. No wonder that there has been a longstanding and contentious rift between religion and science.

There have always been some, however, who see their compatibility. In the days of the Inquisition and the Counter-Reformation, this would have been a dangerous philosophy to embrace. But I think we have happily been seeing an increase in this outlook. Rob Bell posits that “science and religion are long lost dance partners.” And scientists from Albert Einstein to Stephen Hawking have written about the spiritual or mystical qualities of theoretical physics. Case in point: the recently identified Higgs boson particle, which is elemental in quantum theory, is often called “the God Particle.”

So what does all this have to do with sin? Glad you asked! Sin has long been a focus point in most religions. (That’s one of the sticking points for many of us!) The definition of sin, though, is not always agreed upon. We have the Pillars of Islam, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, Hinduism’s purusharthas, the Path of Enlightenment, and a host of codes of ethics. It’s enough to make one’s head spin! Looked at objectively, there is at the root of all of them a separation. In fact, some religious teaching hints at this commonality. Murder, to cite one example, cannot happen if the killer feels any connection to the victim. I think the eastern religions (and some of the ancient indigenous spirituality) have done a better job with this concept of oneness than the Big Three monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). There is this overarching idea of otherness that seems to pervade them – both between the divine and creation and among people and things.

Here’s where the quantum theory stuff is so interesting. According to theoretical physics, there is a sub-atomic connection among everything. Obviously, two warthogs born in the same litter in the Kenyan desert are related. They share DNA. But how about these two warthogs and a Wall Street trader? Are they related? They certainly don’t seem to be. But some quantum theory suggests that they are. So what’s happening on the trading floor on Wall Street can affect the desert in Kenya? Maybe. Ilia Delio of the Center for Action and Contemplation says, “If reality is nonlocal, that is, if things can affect one another despite distance or space-time coordinates, then nature is not composed of material substances but deeply entangled fields of energy; the nature of the universe is undivided wholeness.” Perhaps this hints at the nature of prayer, or to the sending out of good thoughts into the universe.

If we can tap into this interconnectedness, this unity of being, then we can move others – for better or for worse. Prayer, good thoughts, an altruistic attitude – these could all have beneficial effects on people that we may never see. On the other hand, hatred, ill will, and a generally foul attitude may negatively affect others. So maybe that’s where sin is rooted: the interruption or resistance of this intangible, quantum communion. Etty Hillesum, a young imprisoned Jew in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, says it pretty straightforwardly: “Each of us moves things along in the direction of war every time we fail to love.”

So we have a choice: we can move things along the direction of love or along the direction of war. And the world has seen more than enough movement in the direction of war.

Samhain's Greetings!

Halloween is really a kind of oddball holiday. Goodness knows that it has long been out of favor among the fundamentalist Christian and some other religions. Of course, it’s been a favorite of candy-loving trick-or-treaters, as well as adults who love to play dress up. Any excuse to party, you know! And then there is the love of all things haunted and scary.

Those are fine reasons to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve. Like most other kids, I looked forward to the dressing up and the subsequent sugar rush. And I’ve always been a fan of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the classic Vincent Price Poe dramatizations that we watched each year in school. (I’m kinda hit or miss on modern horror offerings. Blood and gore don’t really do it for me unless there’s genuine suspense and psychological depth to the story. But that’s just me; if you’re a slasher fan, more power to ya!)

The more interesting aspect to me is the spiritual one. (Go figure, right?) I remember hearing about All Hallows’ Eve when I was young, but I either didn’t catch any of the finer points or didn’t remember them. It’s really quite fascinating. November 1 has been celebrated as All Saints’ Day for centuries. On one hand it was apparently a kind of catchall for saints who didn’t have their own feast days. (Although looking at the liturgical calendar, it’s hard to imagine that any were missed!) In some far-flung reaches of Catholicism, the night before was used to honor all of the dearly departed. Certain regions would celebrate local figures, perhaps, and families would honor their own. This strikes a particular chord for me. There are recently departed family members and friends whose absence has left a noticeable hole in my life. I’m sure everyone can relate to this. What could be better than to take specific time – a quiet moment, a time of reflection, a raised glass – to honor these dear ones?

Along these lines, the Celts in particular saw this time of year, Samhain (pronounced SAH-win or SOW-in), as a liminal or thin time. In other words, the veil or wall that separates the mundane physical world from the spiritual is either lifted or at least easily crossed. So at this time we can better contact the supernatural, the divine, or maybe even the spirits of our departed loved ones. I’m having visions of Yoda telling Luke Skywalker, “You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship . . . through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future, the past. Old friends long gone.”

Samhain also marked the beginning of the dark half of the year for the ancients. You can imagine as the days grew shorter and colder and all the crops died in the fields that it was a scary time. But they understood the circular nature of life. In order to be productive and alive in the spring, there is a needed time of dormancy. So the Celts and others came to respect and even welcome this time after harvest.

So among all the Halloween revelry – the candy, the scary movies, the parties, the dressing up as Donald Trump or Han Solo – take some time to reflect. To honor departed loved ones. To seek God, or the Force, or the Greater Good. If nothing else, perhaps it will make the dark and cold time of year easier to face.

A Theory of Everything

No, this post isn't about Stephen Hawking or the biopic about him. (Although it is a wonderful film. See it if you haven't! Eddie Redmayne fully deserved his Best Actor Oscar.) Rather this post is an attempt to unpack a worldview, to make some sense out of nearly fifty years on this earth. Or rather, it's a starting point. To fully discuss my theory of everything would take hours of discussion, and likely an adult beverage or two!

When people ask me if I believe in God, I will say yes. If they ask if I am spiritual, my answer is unequivocal. When asked if I am a Christian, however, I cannot answer so quickly. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it depends what the definition of "Christian" is. I would guess that by some of the more dogmatically religious, my Christianity would be in question. I certainly don't mean to offend anyone who more readily identifies as Christian, but I don't think I fit neatly into that camp. I don't claim to have arrived at any high level of spirituality, but I have been through some stuff.

The big thing for me is that we can have these ideas, these notions about God, spirituality, etc. It's actually good to have such notions as a starting point. But at some point, life happens. Our pre-conceived ideas come smack up against reality. And then one of a few things happens. The first–and sadly all too common–response is blindness. We don't–or won't–see things as they are. We just fail to realize or acknowledge that there is any kind of incongruity between our mental blueprint for how things should work and how they actually do. A second possibility is that we see the disconnect, but we try to fit reality into our idea box. It's the old image of trying to pound a square peg into a round whole. "See, it fits!" we proclaim, as the peg sits askew and both it and the whole are splintered. In both these cases, we go through life so out of touch with the world and people in it that no one wants to be around us. And we don't want to be around anyone else either, at least not as they really are. We only engage with people on a superficial and mostly unrealistic level.

When we honestly and truthfully see the discrepancy between our preconceptions and real life, we must consider altering our ideas. It's rather like the scientific method. Here's a very simple example: I have a theory that 20 percent of all cars in a parking lot are blue, so I count the total number of cars and the number that are blue. Turns out that there are 300 cars and 15 are blue. That's a far cry from 20 percent! So I could try to say that of those other 285 cars the green ones are a shade of blue, and that the black ones are just very dark blue, and that the silver ones are a very pale blue. Wouldn't you question my intelligence (and possibly my sanity)?

So what's the upshot of all this? We must be willing to at least entertain ideas that we either hadn't considered or that we had previously dismissed. Refusing to do so is the height of arrogance. "I'm right. I always will be right. There is no possibility that I am wrong." Many would not voice these thoughts, or possibly don't even think them. But the way they act, and particularly the way they treat others, gives them away. Sure, we may have our preferences, and our traditions; again, that's good! It gives us a point of reference. It's how we personally relate to the transcendent in a way that has meaning and makes sense to us personally.

But we seriously miss the mark any time we think we have the market cornered. How dare we say that someone else's way is less than ours or, worse still, dead wrong? I'll close (for now!) with a Hindu teaching that says it pretty well:


There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading in the same direction, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only one wasting time is the one who runs around and around the mountain, telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.

Queen Street and Coole Park

Anyone who knows my wife Joan and me knows that we are seasonal opposites. She is very much summer's child, a worshiper of the sun, and a reveler in warm weather. I look forward to the autumnal equinox and the coming of cooler weather. She laments it, raging against the dying of the night. Now, she has certainly helped me to find and appreciate the joys of summer. But I'm still an autumn and winter more than a spring and summer guy.


I have always looked forward to breaking out the flannel and the sweaters. I like the shorter daylight when it means lighting candles and starting a fire in the fireplace. There's something satisfying about seeing the cornfields in harvest. And I know that for the circle of our lives to progress, the darker, dormant season is necessary. The slowing down of life just suits me. And maybe it has something to do with my being born in October.


Anyway, I thought a fitting tribute to autumn might be to share a piece from one of my favorite poets, W.B. Yeats.


"The Wild Swans at Coole" (1919)
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

The Elephant Man and the Zen of Stage Management

As mentioned in a previous post, I have been stage managing The Elephant Man at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center. We just finished our second weekend of performances.

The Elephant Man is a very different kind of play. Bernard Pomerance wrote it in 1977, and the Johnathan Sanger/David Lynch movie followed soon after. The film allegedly used separate source material, but it included some scenes and references that Pomerance created for his play. Pomerance sued and received a settlement. Anyway, the play is a structure that the 21st century theater-goer may have little exposure to. (I certainly did!) It very much resembles the work of Berthold Brecht, with a series of 21 separate scenes that do not connect to form a cohesive narrative. They mostly do flow chronologically, but there is a purposeful disconnection between them. As with Brecht's work, the style is realistic only to a point, and the awareness of theater is prominent.

Through the prep and rehearsal process, our director held that Dr. Treves, and not Joseph "John" Merrick is the central figure of the play, although Merrick of course features heavily. The journey of these two astounding men is astonishing, although again in typical Brecht-ian style the play seeks analysis and thought much more than emotional connection. That is not to say there is no emotion in the play – there certainly is! To see the enormous hardship that Merrick was forced to endure is heartbreaking, and his grace at handling it as well as the eventual celebrity that he encounters is very touching. Merrick's encounter with the actress Mrs. Kendall also displays his deep humanity despite his gross deformity. However, there is little to no over-arc to the emotional journeys portrayed; they are purposefully segmented. Again, it is a play that will likely leave audience members with things to think about and discuss rather than with a strong emotional imprint.

So what are some of these thoughts? For me, one of the big ones is what it means to be human. Other characters remark that Merrick wants very much "to be like others." Disfigured as he is, Merrick feels very alienated and probably sub-human. But he shows us in the play how very human he is. He has an apparently strong faith; he spends much of Act 2 working on a model of St. Phillip's church, and he frequently visits with Bishop How. And through his conversations, we see a very sensitive and caring man. His conversations with Mrs. Kendall reveal a very sensitive, thoughtful, and quite beautiful soul. In another scene, two hospital workers intrude on Merrick to get a glimpse of him. Merrick is much more concerned about the consequence for the fired worker and his children than he is about himself. He may be physically disfigured, but he shines a rather bright light on the disfigurement of our internal lives.

The other side of my education in this entire process has been my role as a stage manager. For the uninitiated, a stage manager serves as an assistant and administrator of sorts to the director throughout the rehearsal process. He or she handles contact with actors and production staff, takes copious notes on everything imaginable, and records blocking and handles the many details of rehearsal. As the performance nears, the stage manager takes more and more ownership of the production. In most cases, the SM calls light and sound cues for the performances. After opening night, the director's job is essentially done, and the SM runs everything. Ideally, all the myriad details have been handled up to that point, so in a very real sense the show runs itself. It is the stage manager's job to make sure that happens. I guess it's rather like an engineer on a train. The tracks have been laid, the destination is predetermined, and the train will do what it's built to do. The engineer sees that all works as it's meant to.

Up to now, all my experience with theater had been onstage (with just a few occasions working backstage). I got to see my wife, Joan, stage manage many times, so I had some idea about the whole process. But it was only in doing it myself that I truly understood. I came into this endeavor sort of by accident. The show needed to replace the stage manager at the last minute before rehearsals got underway, and I was willing to step in, having never had any real desire to stage manage before. But once I got into it, my eyes were opened to a new experience. As I mentioned, I had been on stage before many times, so I was familiar with live theater from that aspect. But stage managing–like directing, I am sure–is an all-encompassing engagement with the production. The SM works with the director very closely, has intimate involvement in every scene of the show (very much unlike my experience as an actor), and works closely with the designers and other production staff.

It's a much more encompassing relationship with the entire process than I had ever had, and I found it quite fulfilling. In theatrical circles, the SM often gets the reputation of being "the bossy one," but it feels very much like I am caring for the production and the people in it. From the first rehearsal, it was a much more engaged encounter with the play and the cast and staff than I had ever known. And now that we are more than halfway through the run, my ownership feeling of the play is almost tangible. I sincerely hope that the cast, director, and production staff have a sense of that same connection. I like to think they do.

And something tells me this first experience won't be my last.
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One Last Serving of Tolle . . . For Now

For this post, I'm sharing one last thought of Eckart Tolle's with everyone–for now, at least. I'm sure some of his wisdom will find its way into my musings from time to time.

Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called “God.” As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life; and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life.

Whether you subscribe to any kind of orthodox belief system or not, I think it is a given that something knits our reality together. For the religiously minded, that something is easily identified as God. For those who do not consider themselves religious, it may be a much more ambivalent concept, but it's still there.

To connect to God/Life/Love/The Force in any way, we must be, as Tolle says, aware of and in touch with the present moment. For our constantly busy minds, this usually involves meditation or some other practice to quiet the mind. I touched on this in a previous post, but we barely scratched the surface of meditation. And honestly, I don't intend to go much deeper here. Meditation–in all its forms–is such a varied and profound practice that I wouldn't want to emphasize certain parts and ignore others. Suffice to say that I find meditation immeasurably valuable to spiritual health. And I urge everyone to try it and practice whatever method works for you. Even within different faith traditions and other spiritual paths, one size assuredly does not fit all.

Whatever approach you take, countless people (as well as much medical and scientific research) will attest to the effectiveness of regular meditation. And I strongly feel that through regular meditation, we cannot help but to become more attuned to this idea of presence. The more I stumble and feel my way through life, the more I am convinced that presence is the bottom line. Without being truly awake and truly aware of the now, all the right thinking, all the good intentions, even all the prayer only get you so far. It's like trying to explain Van Gogh to a blind person. You might be able to technically explain what's going on in Starry Night, but it must be seen.

And so must life. I've spent a good bit of my nearly-50 years on this earth with my eyes closed. I used always to worry about what would happen tomorrow, next week, next year. And as if the future weren't enough, I would obsess over every little thing in the past. It's a wonder I never developed an ulcer. Oh, wait, I did. How many seven-year-old kids give themselves ulcers?

I still have my moments, but I am at least starting to learn how to live in the now. When I remember to keep my thoughts and attention on the current moment, the overall level of stress is way down. My heart rate, which I am actually noticing, slows. Here is where life opens up to us, when we are fully aware. Here is where we can see and feel the connections with other people, and even with the earth and with the greater universe. That feeling you get from looking up at the stars on a clear night? Presence and awareness of the universe. The more we can seek that awareness, the more we can move toward it–even in our busiest moments; perhaps especially in our busiest moments–the more we are tapping into the fullness of life. And the more we get a glimpse of God, transcendence, or however you identify the mystery and the soul of it all.