Time Traveling

With my college graduation looming (tomorrow, technically), it seemed an appropriate time to do a little time traveling.

I was trying to get a start on cleaning my room in preparation for packing and made the mistake of opening up some of my old notebooks.

I've journaled for most of my life, but only recently have I felt comfortable enough to write for the world to see. I used to dread having people read things I wrote (and rightly so--some of the things I wrote in middle school should be incinerated).

Tonight, though, I found something I wanted to share. [No worries, it's not from middle school.] It's actually not from very long ago at all. This was written just over five years ago, and just as I was emerging from one of the darkest times of my life thus far.


March 4, 2008

It has been 264 days. 264 days I have been a resident of this country once again. The present is so incredibly much more bearable now. In fact, it is now enjoyable. I turned the corner awhile ago, and everything has looked brighter to me since.
Transition. I'm not sure I loathe the word, but I certainly don't look on it with a kind eye.
Generally speaking and on paper, the word causes no problems. In reality, however, I have been wrestling with it for most of my life. And "wrestling" is very appropriate terminology.
How I have fought. Soundlessly, wordlessly, in the overwhelming silence of loneliness penetrating my confused and whirling mind.
Each tick-tick-tick of the clock pierced the deepest part of my heart. With each breath, I breathed pain in and out. Everywhere I looked, everything I touched, every word I uttered, and each step I took hurt.
I did not want to get to know these people, nor did they want to know me. Drawing into myself was the only solution, and I knew they would not follow. I was right. They did not even take interest.
People, as a general rule, don't care how much you know (who you are, where you come from, what makes you tick) until they know how much you care. Care about them as people. It was not until I began to care that I began to be cared about.
Things still seem strange sometimes. There are things; experiences that happened before anyone here even knew that I existed that I will never know of. But I've learned that what truly matters is that I am right here right now.

The Funny Thing About Using Labels

We can say all we want that we don't like labels or using labels to describe ourselves or other people, but (to quote a friend of mine), "it is what it is."

Sometimes, it seems, labels are the only way we know how to describe the reality we're confronting. 

"Liberal" and "conservative" are two such labels.

And so, according to most people who have known me well for longer than four or five years, they would probably tell you that my views on life and Christianity and God and... well...  everything have changed some in just the few years I've been in college. 

"What do you mean, 'they've changed'?" 

Umm, my definitions of a lot of things have changed, and I've just started to think more deeply about situations and religion and politics, etc. and don't necessarily see things the same way I used to.

"Well, okay. Meaning...?"

Fine. I'm not as conservative now as I was five years ago.

See? Now you know exactly what I mean. 

It's been an interesting journey, getting to where I am now. And I know several people who, in some ways, will probably think I'm on some kind of downward spiral into secularist relativist humanism or some other horrible kind of "ism." Many of whom worry about me and pray that I will find my way back to a fold I'm not sure I was ever in.

I just completed my senior project, in which I used language on stage--something I would not have felt comfortable doing my freshman year at IWU. As I grew in my understand of God and of myself, however, I came to a place of peace about this, because the character and I are not the same person. Apparently, however, in some people's eyes, my evolving views on this subject are [what some would call] "liberal."

But it's funny how labels then get turned on their heads.

I found myself in an interesting situation this week. 

My Christian university has hired an outside company to come and create video representations of several different departments to be used by the admissions office, Theatre being one of these departments. First of all, I was intrigued that we were remembered. I feel as though, because the Theatre department is not very large, it has sometimes been overlooked in these types of ventures and promotions. I found out in the middle of the musical, however, that they were creating one for the Theatre department. They told me that they had been given my name, and asked if they could feature me in the video. I agreed, and have been corresponding with them this week about shots they'd like to get and footage they'd like to use for the video. One of the sequences they suggested didn't sit well with me, however. 

The request was to shoot a sequence of me praying and reading the bible in the Williams Prayer Chapel on campus. This may not seem like a strange request to you at all if you are familiar with the IWU campus and culture. It would seem to provide visuals to fulfill what I assume are the goals and objectives of the admissions video--to highlight a student taking academic and spiritual life very seriously. (In this case, it might be more to show that theatre people at IWU aren't ungodly pagans--not sure about that one.) But something about the request rubbed me the wrong way and made me uncomfortable. At first I couldn't figure out exactly what it was, but after thinking about it for a while, I figured it out.

It would feel so posed. Fake. Unauthentic. 

My spiritual and prayer life are things I take very seriously. In Matthew 6, Jesus says to, when you pray, go into your room and close the door--the Father sees what you do in secret. And so, when I thought bout posing for shots doing something I tend to hold as very sacred and private, I cringed a little inside. 

I understand that this all probably sounds very strange coming from an actor. Someone who essentially wants to pose and re-create actions and moments for a living. But maybe that's why I hold this particular things as something so sacred. We all have sacred things. And this would not be a character. This is me.

I wrote them back detailing my reservations and, fortunately, they completely understood. Both of the guys I've been talking to are Christians too and understood where I was coming from, and they are willing to work with me to try to find a different solution that would not be as forced or posed. This was a huge relief to me. I almost cried when I read the email.

And maybe labels don't really work in this situation, but it occurred to me that, for all my evolving views on the differences between characters and actors and how my understanding of my faith works within the context of theatre, expressing these reservations made me feel oddly like I was a freshman again, unsure how I felt about saying "shit" on stage.

What's my label? 

I'll let you figure that one out.

And Then It Was Done

Thursday and Friday nights, April 4 and 5 were the last two performances of My Name is Rachel Corrie.

It, again, went so much better than I could have ever hoped or dreamed. 

Exactly the same as last time, it got very stressful right in the few days leading up to the performances because I was worried that some element wouldn't come together and the show would be limping.

But theatre magic always pulls through and everything always works out somehow. Every time. And this time was no exception.

DC (who designed the tech elements) graduated last semester, so I had no one lined up to run the technical elements. Fortunately, however, I had a fantastic stage manager who stepped up to the plate, and had a wonderful ASM jump on board too. (It just so happened to work out that they also happen to be two of my best friends, which is a wonderful idea and I recommend it.) My ASM ran QLab - with the projections and sound - and my stage manager hit the [grand total of six] light cues on the board while calling the show. Because there were only light cues at the beginning and the end, it didn't end up being too extremely complicated I don't think. 

We had Monday off for Easter break, which meant that, coming back in on Tuesday, I wished I'd had the extra day to work on sorting out technical things. We had never really run sound off of a Mac from the control booth in the Black Box before, and I paid lots of visits to Staples and Hobby Lobby, shooting the breeze with the tech gurus, tossing around words like "Firewire," "Adapter," "Input," "Output," "male-to-female," "gender-bender," and ordering lots of very technical-sounding cables. Chyeah. 

We didn't actually end up using any of them. But that's okay, because the director of the PPAC came to my rescue and, in our Plan D (which actually worked like a dream), hooked the sound system up to a mixer, and then straight into the headphone jack on my computer. Long and complicated story short: we had sound. 

After fiddling with the videos and projections, adding a couple of little things, and asking a friend to re-record one of the audio files, all of that was set and worked perfectly fine. If there had been time, it would have been nice to get all of the projections onto the full screen (they had to be at half screen in Baker, since the screen was so low, but in the Black Box the screen was hanging from the grid quite a few feet above my head). I'm sure it was fine, however. I don't think I heard a single person say anything about it.

As for the acting, I think it went very well both nights. Thanks to the rehearsals in the week leading up to the performances, I felt like this semester's performances were more polished, refined, and deeper than last semester's. It was nice to delve back into Rachel again.

Just from the word-of-mouth feedback I've been hearing, I've heard over and over again:

"That wasn't you."

Which is pretty much the best compliment I could get.

It's nice not to have to stress about it anymore, but I will miss playing Rachel. Perhaps, someday, if I ever get the opportunity to work as an actor, I will get to the point where I'm sick of a character or of performing a role. But this hasn't felt quite fair, because it felt like it was over before it began. I wish I could keep playing that character in front of audiences for days on end. I want to know how that feels. Oh I'm sure I'd get exhausted and overwhelmed. But I also think a deep part of my soul would sing.

Thursday night's crowd was a little tough. People came in late, at least two different groups of people got up and left at different moments, people were apparently texting and a text tone went off (so I'm told - I didn't really hear it), they weren't extremely responsive during the performance, and the talkback was like pulling teeth. 

Friday night was the polar opposite. People laughed. A lot. Nobody came in late and nobody left. A lot of people I knew were there. And the talkback was the best one we had in both semesters - people were engaged and asked lots of great questions. 

And then we put this little show to bed. And I am still in awe of how it came together. No way it was my doing. That's all I'm saying.

Arab/Israeli Conflict Lecture

On Wednesday, March 27, the Intercultural Student Services office at my school hosted a talk on the Arab/Israeli conflict and situation with Daniel Bannoura, a Palestinian Christian and graduate student in Islamic studies and Philosophy at the University of Chicago.

Of course I had to go. My director and I went, and I'm so glad we did!

About 1/3 of the way into the presentation, I began scribbling madly in my notebook. I'd like to think I was channeling Rachel Corrie. (Only not really, because hers would have had some bizarre drawings all over the margins.)

In case you have trouble deciphering, here are some things I wrote down. And, a little like Rachel, actually, I think I'm just going to leave it a big indecipherable list, and you get to make of it what you will. Muahaha.

Theological Conundrum #675231:

On reading the text 

Jewish people

Chosen

Metaphor
West Bank = Swiss cheese

When he was fourteen had a friend - shot by a sniper because he broke three- or four-day curfew to buy bread for family

Threw rocks at soldiers during intifada - not what you did when you were a teenager

Moral
Ethical response
Reconciliation
Demographics
Seclusion & separation
Land of refuge

"the memory of the Jew" ?
guilt/national conscience - let them down
-> hurting new party
old superceding new

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER!

The church in Palestine feels left behind
Counter-Christian
Counter-cultural

Cultural perceptions of God

U.S. in the position -> if we withhold veto on Palestinian statehood or show any support for Palestine, lose alliance w/ Israel

Ends justify the means?

Story about meeting -
No politics, just sharing stories

Political Judaism
Political Islam
Political Christianity

Re: the wall
"It's not an inconvenience. If someone spits in your coffee, that's an inconvenience."

"Prophecy-obsessed"

Social Justice: mainstream/Catholic vs. evangelical
Zionism
Dispensationalism

Using words -> reality

Us vs. Them narrative

Liberation Theology

Palestinian Christian in video - "I'm not persecuted because I am a Christian, I am persecuted because I am Palestinian"

Daniel:
"My only experience of the Israeli is the soldier, not the human. I didn't grow up knowing any Israelis. I think that's the problem with the conflict."

I Write Like Me.

Sometimes I wish I could write like Tolkien. 

I wish I could describe with long, detailed, and eloquent sentences the way the trees outside my second-floor bedroom window dance and shiver just outside my lacy white translucent curtains, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting at one another, and at me; for you see, they always know just when I am most vulnerable, and they are--most often--like tall, spindly friends: kindly when they beat out a rhythm on my roof in time with the pelts of the wind or rain during a midnight storm, watching over me like protective neighbors, yet always finding the voice to shout me awake the following gray, dreary morning, and even asking--at times--how long has it been since I wrote any of these thoughts down somewhere? Perhaps I would be best-served to go eat a second breakfast, sit down with a pipe, and write down my every last adventure.

Sometimes I wish I could write like Shakespeare.

In wonder wouldst thou marvel at my verse;
The careful meter beauty on the page;
Your eyes would firstly drink and quench their thirst,
Then find a banquet spread; and in the deft,
Unhappy, hardened ears of scholars all
And babes that cry for want of tender words
Alike, a symphony would burst of rare
And long-lost fullness sweet and mild with ne'er
The singlest word nor metaphor amiss.

Sometimes I wish I could write like Rachel Held Evans.

My thoughts, words, and musings on life and faith would always manage, somehow, to be impeccably timed, gracious, and wouldn't let you look away from your computer screen before you smiled at least once.

My words would be able to supernaturally reach through cyberspace to thousands of readers and somehow hug each and every one of them.

They would let you know that you are not alone. That you never have been.
That you are precious.
That you matter.
And that your journey is neither small nor irrelevant.

I don't think I've ever wanted to write like Ernest Hemingway.

My sentences would be short. They would always be straightforward. Fewer words mean less frivolity. I would not give you much to work with. You would have to fill in a lot for yourself. 

I might tell you I liked something. I would not tell you about it. I would not tell you why I liked it. I would write about doing things. I would not write about thinking or feeling things. Under no circumstances would I use contractions. This would be difficult.

Sometimes I wish I could write like Rachel Corrie. 

I would make lists of things that wouldn't make much sense to anyone beyond my own brain--perhaps of things I want most.
Or memories.
Or people I'd like to meet.

And they would all be in lower case letters, nestled unceremoniously between paragraphs of ever-intentional run-on sentences and sometimes looking like a strange poem, belly-dancing down the page, beckoning with the most unlikely, jagged, jack-in-the-box metaphors that you will have to puzzle at for a week or two, or maybe a year, before they click, all having to do with

nature
a broken-down car
my beautifully heartbreaking back-alley-dark-curls-and-almond-honey love affairs
the one million and five things that i could do. and be. and find.
my mom
fantasies i dream up to make a fraction of sense of the skewed way i look at things
places i've been
questions that are too big to be spoken out loud so i write them as loudly as i can
salmon
and maps.

The poetry would weave silently, unnoticeably into literal descriptions until my stream-of-consciousness would always be just on the verge of sparkling clarity, but never quite. And my forward investigation of life would never shy away from the things that are hardest to put into words. In fact, I would continually realize that those are the things most worth writing about.

But I don't write like any of them. 

Sometimes I'll read back through something I've written and I'll wish I'd used more metaphors or adjectives or made it sound more poetic or that it was more worthwhile. But (surprise, surprise!), I write like me. And then I think, all things considered, that's pretty okay too.