Lost I am but she's become
a lovely blade of grass
in a squall of rain
While I thrash on frowning and
shrivelled against ancient pain
(that rhetoric again!)
inside of me still
outside of me
Her innocence knowing, her silence true
so glistening!
unscythed by rules
free of wisdom's cheap furniture
she's still to ever fully forget
that mercy is not mercy
justice not justice
oh blessed how blessed that she may thus move deeper
so richly rewarded, yet unrequiring of thankfulness
but how cursed and ruined I stumble
parcelled up in pharasiacal righteousness
knowing more (or less)
but praying so vainly
for the lost needles eye
in this pitiable sodden bloody haystack
only because i stubbornly desire love to be just...
a weapon
and so craving the comfortless comfort
of motive fumbling for the hopeless hope
that while she lives and breathes
she bruises
she bends...
I lurch I gasp
But bruise and bend she does
and because of me
she does
And yet she grows oh she grows
she does
without me
Well bless her existence for Your Love's sake
and help me!
A poem for S.O.
Saturday 28 June 2008
Thursday 19 June 2008
FEARLESS BLISS
"Ask your soul to illuminate your interior, to transform your suffering into insight and purpose. Pray for this profound act of transformation."
"Live in fearless bliss and allow the divine to awaken your soul's greatest potential."
"Your sole/soul requirement is to commit to being devoted to your inner authority- to the divine. That devotion will give you the will to follow through on all that you are guided to do, say, and become in this life."
"Take your soul out into the world and allow God to work through you as a channel for grace, a vessel of power and transformation... You are a container for God in this world."
Wow. These quotes are all from Caroline Myss' fabulously inspiring Entering the Castle, based on Teresa of Avila's devotional classic "The Interior Castle". Both books are profound and resonant stimuli for my lectio divina, and contain much for this actor's soul to meditate, explore and so live by.
Having finished rereading both these books last week I was somehow able to summon the courage yesterday to refuse a director's offer of the title role in Anthony Nielson's The Censor at this year's Edinburgh Festival. I am not used to turning roles down, but the play did not chime with my moral values (My God , I sound like old Mary Whitehouse, don't I!?), and so I followed the promptings of my Soul, rather than my head. This took some nerve as I have no other offers in the pipeline.
I still await confirmation of dates for my production of Brian Friel's Faith Healer at the Ramshorn this autumn. Friel's sublime and profound series of monologues are just perfect for me right now, distilling such themes as Faith, Love, Art and Spiritual Purpose. Rediscovering this play was a definitive answer to much prayer, in fact! I intend to cast myself in the title role and to direct it. Of course, in the past, I have always avoided acting and directing at the same time (Being simultaneously objective and subjective is not easy); but the trouble is I simply can't choose which I would rather do. Doing both, no doubt, will be perceived by some to be a vanity project once news gets out at Strathclyde Theatre Group, but hey, sod it... Other people can think what they like! I know I'll be doing it for the highest reasons, and I know God is cool with that :-)
Monday 9 June 2008
Divine Discontent
I am going to write here of something artists rarely talk about because it sounds fanatical, even crazymad. And this is going to come across like I have completely lost the plot. But I write this with all humility, because i know how far short I come of achieving my ideals.
But fuck it, it is what I think!!
My prayer life, daily meditation and spiritual writings have always been informed and intimately bound up with my experiences as an actor/ artist. Acting has remained my preferred and most creative form of worship for over 30 years. In my most sublime moments I like to think have been able to bring my entire soul to the acting process, as a gift returned to God... It is only then that the body and the mind and the heart all become imbued with the highest motives of my soul: 'gathered', as the Quakers might put it. It has been many years since I have really experienced this, but I do know first hand (better than anything else I have ever known) miracles in the theatre are possible. On those blessed 3 or 4 nights of communion with the divine (I told you it would sound mad!) I briefly succeeded in knowing what it is to become whole. It's not that I am perfect by any means (far from it!) but in those moments I am Being rather than behaving; totally congruent- inwardly and outwardly, bursting with the magic that transmutes the invisible and intangible universe of Spirit into the tangible, the worldly and the empirically real. The work feels touched, even embraced by God's truth, purity, grace and beauty; so easy and completely in the eternity of the now that I know it is God who is lifting me up and employing me as His channel.
...And it is exquisite.
So why can't it happen every night???! What prevents me from bringing my whole soul and every fibre of my being to the work each and every time, given that it means so much to me?
Well,fear, pride, shame about being inadequate or foolish, ingratitude to my Source, ambition, lack of faith, the desire to impress, the apparent safety of repeating ones successes (bad habits), all the mental nonsense interfering with your flow and focus- in fact the very same factors that interfere with all the many other forms of prayer or contemplation.
The purpose of my work as an actor is to be a channel of Love as I have already said in a previous blog. And, just as it is with any devout Mystic's earnest prayer, one is required as an actor to shed and utterly cede all egoistic control, to surrender and lie prostrate as you bathe in His divine influence and enter into the total bliss of fearlessness and yield to faith in the outrageous, the impossible. But this is never easy, because it ultimately depends on Grace and an utter and pure humility.
Most actors contrive to conjure in themselves (and hence their audiences) what Samuel Taylor Coleridge termed "the willing suspension of disbelief". But I think this neat little phrase enshrines a scant and tawdry form of 'artistic agnosticism',. It fails to foster full Flow and Connection. Coleridge's 'suspension' can only result in theatre that is comparatively mediocre and ultimately inert. It is only the truly great dramatists, directors and actors who will strive to go beyond this. These rare artists set their sights on creating not just a suspension of dis-belief, and not even mere belief. Instead they courageously pursue a dream of unshakeable Faith that can move souls to be totally transform under the light of Heaven. These geniuses in-spirit and en-courage us to live life in entirely new ways. Higher ways. Great acting proves to the hearts, minds and spirits who witness it that miracles are not just possible but inevitable when you commit fully to God's promises. In our cynical age where we want to ascribe such achievements to tricks, emotional manipulation, mass hypnotism, to scientifically measurable techniques and results, to psychological aberation or simple delusion, the art of acting must strive to retain its claim to being one of the last remaining antidotes to the zeitgeist of 21st century toxic Doubt. The theatre must lay assert its rights as a Temple where we can witness the full spiritual and transcendent supremacy of God's power moving mountains. It is time we stopped being ashamed or embarrassed of thinking in this way. OK it could be just an impossible ideal, a futile fantasy, but it is a Holy one and it can spur us on if we are willing to let it.
In my youth I would frighten myself with the possibilities of this power of which i write today. I feared that I might drive myself mad like poor old Ronald Colman playing Othello in that wonderful old movie A Double Life, and so I shied away from fully committing to these fanatical ideals. I would sit in Sutton Library as a 17 year old and devour Nietzsche and every acting book I could lay my hands on and dream all this stuff, but was too afraid to commit myself fully to it. Now I am approaching 50, and so much more secure in who I am and who I am not, I have to finally throw my old addictions to fear and pride aside and stand stripped naked before my God, without masks, and believe I am safe and relatively sound of mind. And so I here renew my vow- To surrender my will and soul to His service completely each time I act. Nothing else matters.
But fuck it, it is what I think!!
My prayer life, daily meditation and spiritual writings have always been informed and intimately bound up with my experiences as an actor/ artist. Acting has remained my preferred and most creative form of worship for over 30 years. In my most sublime moments I like to think have been able to bring my entire soul to the acting process, as a gift returned to God... It is only then that the body and the mind and the heart all become imbued with the highest motives of my soul: 'gathered', as the Quakers might put it. It has been many years since I have really experienced this, but I do know first hand (better than anything else I have ever known) miracles in the theatre are possible. On those blessed 3 or 4 nights of communion with the divine (I told you it would sound mad!) I briefly succeeded in knowing what it is to become whole. It's not that I am perfect by any means (far from it!) but in those moments I am Being rather than behaving; totally congruent- inwardly and outwardly, bursting with the magic that transmutes the invisible and intangible universe of Spirit into the tangible, the worldly and the empirically real. The work feels touched, even embraced by God's truth, purity, grace and beauty; so easy and completely in the eternity of the now that I know it is God who is lifting me up and employing me as His channel.
...And it is exquisite.
So why can't it happen every night???! What prevents me from bringing my whole soul and every fibre of my being to the work each and every time, given that it means so much to me?
Well,fear, pride, shame about being inadequate or foolish, ingratitude to my Source, ambition, lack of faith, the desire to impress, the apparent safety of repeating ones successes (bad habits), all the mental nonsense interfering with your flow and focus- in fact the very same factors that interfere with all the many other forms of prayer or contemplation.
The purpose of my work as an actor is to be a channel of Love as I have already said in a previous blog. And, just as it is with any devout Mystic's earnest prayer, one is required as an actor to shed and utterly cede all egoistic control, to surrender and lie prostrate as you bathe in His divine influence and enter into the total bliss of fearlessness and yield to faith in the outrageous, the impossible. But this is never easy, because it ultimately depends on Grace and an utter and pure humility.
Most actors contrive to conjure in themselves (and hence their audiences) what Samuel Taylor Coleridge termed "the willing suspension of disbelief". But I think this neat little phrase enshrines a scant and tawdry form of 'artistic agnosticism',. It fails to foster full Flow and Connection. Coleridge's 'suspension' can only result in theatre that is comparatively mediocre and ultimately inert. It is only the truly great dramatists, directors and actors who will strive to go beyond this. These rare artists set their sights on creating not just a suspension of dis-belief, and not even mere belief. Instead they courageously pursue a dream of unshakeable Faith that can move souls to be totally transform under the light of Heaven. These geniuses in-spirit and en-courage us to live life in entirely new ways. Higher ways. Great acting proves to the hearts, minds and spirits who witness it that miracles are not just possible but inevitable when you commit fully to God's promises. In our cynical age where we want to ascribe such achievements to tricks, emotional manipulation, mass hypnotism, to scientifically measurable techniques and results, to psychological aberation or simple delusion, the art of acting must strive to retain its claim to being one of the last remaining antidotes to the zeitgeist of 21st century toxic Doubt. The theatre must lay assert its rights as a Temple where we can witness the full spiritual and transcendent supremacy of God's power moving mountains. It is time we stopped being ashamed or embarrassed of thinking in this way. OK it could be just an impossible ideal, a futile fantasy, but it is a Holy one and it can spur us on if we are willing to let it.
In my youth I would frighten myself with the possibilities of this power of which i write today. I feared that I might drive myself mad like poor old Ronald Colman playing Othello in that wonderful old movie A Double Life, and so I shied away from fully committing to these fanatical ideals. I would sit in Sutton Library as a 17 year old and devour Nietzsche and every acting book I could lay my hands on and dream all this stuff, but was too afraid to commit myself fully to it. Now I am approaching 50, and so much more secure in who I am and who I am not, I have to finally throw my old addictions to fear and pride aside and stand stripped naked before my God, without masks, and believe I am safe and relatively sound of mind. And so I here renew my vow- To surrender my will and soul to His service completely each time I act. Nothing else matters.
Monday 2 June 2008
My Introduction to the Quakers
I was asked to write an article for Elmbank News, the Glasgow Society of Friends magazine. Here it is...
My first Quaker meeting
Looking back I suppose it was a chain of synchronicities that drew me to the Society of Friends. About 10 days before my first meeting (during what must have been the Quaker outreach week, I realised subsequently), I happened, by chance, to tune into a interview with two seasoned Quakers on Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 lunchtime show. My interest in the item was stirred having just finished a wonderful book by the Philadelphian Quaker and first-time novelist, Benjamin Lloyd. The Actor’s Way is an epistolary novel, which tells of the unlikely Friend-ship between a retired teacher and her former student- a young, anguished, alcoholic actor. I was so moved by the story I emailed the writer to congratulate him- something I would never usually do.
I’d literally just turned the final page, and already decided I would immediately reread it, when my wife Karen interrupted-
“There’s no porridge left, Mark; I’ve nothing for breakfast tomorrow”.
(Can you see where this is going...?)
I hrrumphed (as is my wont) and somewhat begrudgingly put down my book and dutifully trudged off to the local supermarket. ASDA’s own brand was out of stock that morning and I was obliged to purchase a box of Quaker Oats...
Well, okay; one man’s Jungian synchronicity may be another fellow’s random coincidence- but God’s got a cranky sense of humour if you care to pay close enough attention. And although I’m not what you might call a superstitious soul, it did seem that something/someone was asking me to follow a trail...
I have always believed in God even though I had not attended church since the late 90s. I began meditating on a daily basis about 3 or 4 years ago, following my own spiritual path and, like many artists, often drawing more enrichment and sustenance from my work – which I have always regarded as a spiritual vocation (I am an actor/acting teacher)- than I did through formal worship. Having been educated and brought up in the Roman Catholic tradition, I had, in my late 20s, converted to Anglicanism. But in the following 13 years I had found myself growing increasingly disaffected with conventional Christian services; and, to be brutally honest, more than a little bored with the hackneyed hymns and homilies, tautological creeds and perfunctory responses. And so eventually I assumed as a 40-something man (somewhat arrogantly it might be said) that I had outgrown the need for organised worship. Or maybe it had outgrown me, who can say…?
However, the little I had managed to glean about Quakerism seemed to offer something far more interesting- the opportunity to develop ones’ Inner Light untrammelled by prescribed creeds and ministers’ “personalities” and prejudices.
I was not disappointed.
Looking back at my journal entry for Sunday, October 21st 2007 I describe that first meeting as “a genuine epiphany”. I recollect my “profound sense of joy and fulfilment during the course of the hour-long meeting", a feeling that I had stumbled upon a group of people who offered me “a sublime lesson in patience, gentleness, tolerance and unpretentious wisdom”. I remember someone (and I don’t recall who it was) ministered during the meeting on Christ’s parable of the talents, and speculated on a possible ‘4th servant’ who invested all his talents, but failed.
Do pardon the cliché, but in that moment her words spoke so deeply to my condition I instantly knew I had arrived home.
There was a lunch afterwards and I don’t believe I had ever met such a remarkable bunch of diverse folk gathered together in the same room ever before!
“I’ll definitely go back”, I wrote in my journal.
And now, some eight months later, I haven’t missed a single week! From the very start the Glasgow Meeting has made me feel so welcome. Many of you have found time in your busy lives to come and see me act in productions at the Ramshorn Theatre of King Lear, The Tempest and Tango. It means so much to me that the Society has such respect for the role of the artist. Even more than this I am deeply grateful that the Quakers understand so well that the ego, intellect and status have no ultimate significance in God’s eyes.
It is for these reasons that I recently applied for full membership of the Glasgow Society of Friends.
Thank you.
Looking back I suppose it was a chain of synchronicities that drew me to the Society of Friends. About 10 days before my first meeting (during what must have been the Quaker outreach week, I realised subsequently), I happened, by chance, to tune into a interview with two seasoned Quakers on Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 lunchtime show. My interest in the item was stirred having just finished a wonderful book by the Philadelphian Quaker and first-time novelist, Benjamin Lloyd. The Actor’s Way is an epistolary novel, which tells of the unlikely Friend-ship between a retired teacher and her former student- a young, anguished, alcoholic actor. I was so moved by the story I emailed the writer to congratulate him- something I would never usually do.
I’d literally just turned the final page, and already decided I would immediately reread it, when my wife Karen interrupted-
“There’s no porridge left, Mark; I’ve nothing for breakfast tomorrow”.
(Can you see where this is going...?)
I hrrumphed (as is my wont) and somewhat begrudgingly put down my book and dutifully trudged off to the local supermarket. ASDA’s own brand was out of stock that morning and I was obliged to purchase a box of Quaker Oats...
Well, okay; one man’s Jungian synchronicity may be another fellow’s random coincidence- but God’s got a cranky sense of humour if you care to pay close enough attention. And although I’m not what you might call a superstitious soul, it did seem that something/someone was asking me to follow a trail...
I have always believed in God even though I had not attended church since the late 90s. I began meditating on a daily basis about 3 or 4 years ago, following my own spiritual path and, like many artists, often drawing more enrichment and sustenance from my work – which I have always regarded as a spiritual vocation (I am an actor/acting teacher)- than I did through formal worship. Having been educated and brought up in the Roman Catholic tradition, I had, in my late 20s, converted to Anglicanism. But in the following 13 years I had found myself growing increasingly disaffected with conventional Christian services; and, to be brutally honest, more than a little bored with the hackneyed hymns and homilies, tautological creeds and perfunctory responses. And so eventually I assumed as a 40-something man (somewhat arrogantly it might be said) that I had outgrown the need for organised worship. Or maybe it had outgrown me, who can say…?
However, the little I had managed to glean about Quakerism seemed to offer something far more interesting- the opportunity to develop ones’ Inner Light untrammelled by prescribed creeds and ministers’ “personalities” and prejudices.
I was not disappointed.
Looking back at my journal entry for Sunday, October 21st 2007 I describe that first meeting as “a genuine epiphany”. I recollect my “profound sense of joy and fulfilment during the course of the hour-long meeting", a feeling that I had stumbled upon a group of people who offered me “a sublime lesson in patience, gentleness, tolerance and unpretentious wisdom”. I remember someone (and I don’t recall who it was) ministered during the meeting on Christ’s parable of the talents, and speculated on a possible ‘4th servant’ who invested all his talents, but failed.
Do pardon the cliché, but in that moment her words spoke so deeply to my condition I instantly knew I had arrived home.
There was a lunch afterwards and I don’t believe I had ever met such a remarkable bunch of diverse folk gathered together in the same room ever before!
“I’ll definitely go back”, I wrote in my journal.
And now, some eight months later, I haven’t missed a single week! From the very start the Glasgow Meeting has made me feel so welcome. Many of you have found time in your busy lives to come and see me act in productions at the Ramshorn Theatre of King Lear, The Tempest and Tango. It means so much to me that the Society has such respect for the role of the artist. Even more than this I am deeply grateful that the Quakers understand so well that the ego, intellect and status have no ultimate significance in God’s eyes.
It is for these reasons that I recently applied for full membership of the Glasgow Society of Friends.
Thank you.
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