Sat, Feb 9
... Slave to the muse
I found this article a while ago. Go read it. It states so well what I want to do with my life. And then there's the theatre article I talked about a while ago. I don't remember which entry that was in, and I'm too lazy to go find it right now so I can link to it. :o) I'm not going to type out the entire thing and post it, but I will put some of my favorite parts on here. Okay, so maybe that will end up being the whole thing, but we'll see. :o) This was a speech given at a CITA (Christians in Theatre Arts) conference a few years ago, and I don't know who wrote it or when it was presented. Take the time to read all of this; it's worth it, I promise!Some Christians--and some theatre artists--would say that Christian Theatre is an oxymoron. We have one foor in the world of religion, faith, and establishment, and we have another foot in the world of theatre, creativity, and anti-establishment. How do we bring the two together? Well Christ did, and they crucified him, so we're in good company and we're in for a ride. He pushed boundaries. He upset the Pharisees. His stories caused riots, His stories changed lives. He created new metaphors for God each time He opened his mouth.
If the church is the Oueen in this Kingdom, then I am the court jester. I am here to entertain the kingdom, to help us all remember to laugh at ourselves, and to remind the Queen that she is fallible, she is NOT God... and neither am I.
No. The church is not God, and neither are we. But we are divine and holy instruments for His expression and revelation. We are the curious questioners, the recognizers of incongruities and layers of metaphor, the truth and lies in the day to day that cannot be resolved by a simple ideological statement. We are the gatherers of stray ideas that haven't found a home in the doctrine of any organization. We are restless stargazers who cannot sleep at night because the questions are bigger than the answers so far rendered. And in that hungry state we wait. We watch. We wonder. We don't know what it is that compels us to the stage, the the drawing table, to the word processor. We only know that we cannot live anywhere else. And so we live obsessively, pursuing the invisible threads that hold it all together, and it is not surprising that in our search for patterns and stories in the heavens, we discover a bright light that sets us out on a journey toward Bethlehem, toward the most articulate story of Divine intervention ever recorded, the Word made flesh, dwelling among us, inspiring us to the possibility of Divinity.
The Muse
When I write well, I write in a state of prayer. When I don't write well, it is because I am not connected to my inspirtation and am instead relying on my intellect and being clever, or writing on the wave of my emotions of fear or anger. This kind of writing can be redeemed with an inspired second draft, but usually it is either drivel or journal therapy and no one should ever have to sit through it. I write drafts of my plays to weed this garbage out.
Artists will talk about being a slave to the muse. I believe that they are tapping into the Holy Spirit, whether they realize it or not. I have come to understand the Word of the Lord is inspiration itself, in fact, its actual meaning is Creative Energy. It inspired the Bible, it works through the Bible, but the Word of the Lord is beyond its own creation and is boundless, alive and in everything created.
Is it any wonder we don't quite fit? Is it any wonder taht our words often create reactions that stem from their seeming inappropriateness? We are like gangly awkward girl and boy childs, adults holding onto imaginary worlds, still playing with matches becuase we know that there is something in the flicker of the flame that holds a truth about the big picture. And when the revelation comes, it burns our fingers, and our reaction to that pain and wonder expresses itself in story and image like a wave that cannot be contained by the story or the image. It is the Muse pratially unmasked, the Word searing and becoming flesh in us. And it's not a wonder that when it comes, we are giddy and frightened and ashamed and hurt and exhilarated all at the same time. It's not a wonder that we find ourselves "looking into a glass dimly" (as St. Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians), peering past the smudges of our own humanity to a glimpse of a story that is so vast that it swallows us up in it. And it is not a wonder that we see for moments in time, a clear reflection of ourselves and the humanity all around us.
The Inspired
It was an important step for me to admit I was a fool and it sure improved my writing when I realized that as an artist I was to ask questions but I was to leave it up to the Holy Spirit to find the answers in the souls of the audience. What a relief!
I find that two things happen in Christian theatre far too often, and I have been guilty of them as well:
1) We forget that we are mortal and we start to play God. We feel compelled to share the truth we know, assume our truth is complete, holy, righteous, and that everyone should hear it. We try to shove as much of the gospel into two hours as we can and end up with pat answers, cliches, and religious banal propaganda.
2) We forget that we are Divine, redeemed, and made in the image of God and we crawl like a worm obsessed with acknowledging our fallen nature. We don't feel worth of the task, we admit our mortality and wallow in it, crying out God works through our weakness, which very often means the tuneless sing at church, actors don't take voice lessons, dancers don't work out, and writers don't do workshops. Because we're afraid that our egos and our persona will get in the way if we become good at what we do. Well, this self-effacing and horrible to endure work only limits the Holy Spirit. Our God is a God of excellence, precision, and beauty. He isn't sloppy. Why should we be?
It is so strange being a dual being. On one hand, I am mortal and full of pride, fear, and shortsightedness. On the other hand, I am Divine, called the Sister to Christ, not the distant half ape cousin twice removed, the sister! An heir to the throne. Is God crazy or what? So I have to remember both sides to me, when I write. I have to take on the power and responsibility of being an heir and know that I am capable of being Divinely good or Divinely evil, depending on what I do. And everything I don't do leaves a big black, gaping hole in the Kingdom. When I tap into the Word of the Lord, I tap into something endlessly amazing and exhilaratingly beautiful. When I don't, my life and my work loses its meaning. It is no longer inspired.
It's not surprising that true artistry leads to a place of humility. It's not surprising that seekers after truth are forced to engage their demons. The artist in torment is an enduring cliche because it is true. The artist proud, yet cowering in the corner of the lobby on opening night is the dichotomy of our lives. It is the dichotomy of the Kingdom. The Son of God having no place to lay his head. The Daughter of God giving birth to the great I Am made flesh, in a stable.
Looking for Inspiration
It is easy to get bored in our lush, fat, excessive society, ironically. I thing we get used to receiving constant stimuli and then gain an appetite for more more more without learning the skills of creating it ourselves, of finding the magic ourselves. We want it bigger faster better more outrageous, just to keep our interest up. Inspiration will not usually come to you like that. If you are suffering from a lck of inspiration, try to put yourself in an observant and impressionable state of mind. Eat a pear and taste each bite, feel the difference of the skin and the flesh as it grazes your teeth. You will find inspiration there. Look for grace in the unexpected places. There will be a light in every darkness, go find it on the streets, in the sewers, in the schoolyard, in the funeral home. I promise it will be there, though Christ may take a form that seems outrageous to you. After all, the last time he was on earth, he turned water into wine for wedding guests to swill at the end of an evening, he overturned tables and attacked merchants with a whip he made himself, he insulted religions leaders publicly with witty comebacks. He spent his morning laughing with children rather than preaching.
There is a calling on our lives. We know it. We're often afraid to admit it, because it opens the door the the most intense kind of vulnerability, nakedness of spirit.
That is theatre, you collection o displaced and awkward souls. That is the theatre; the place where audiences become flush with embarrassment, where silly laughs escape from mouths anonymous in the darkness, wehre gasps of outrage fill the air in those moments where the inappropriate dares to be appropriate. And if the audience of gawking hungry humanity were to actually see itself in that mirror dimly, they would see faces reflecting the lighjt that emanates from the story that is the most intimate of expressions, artist to artis living in the vulnerability of moments that become more than the sum of their parts, because tehy are naked and open offerings to one another, and to the God that created the light that suspends them visible in a moment of time.
May God grant us the courage to live in the centre of that piercing, burning immensity.
I don't understand that fully yet. Every time I read it, I gain some new insight; some new encouragement from it... but it always makes me think. Makes me reexamine why it is that I do what I do, and draws me back to the source of what I love.
infinite || abyss
posted at 6:15 p.m.
