An Impossible Dream in Texas

I blame Cervantes. And Peter O’Toole. And Sofia Loren. They taught me to tilt at windmills. They taught me I could be Dulcinea instead of Aldonza just by saying so. They taught me to see life as it should be and not as it is.

Theatre changes people. For millennia, theatre has been a sacred and profane temple for human beings to explore the meaning of their existence and be transformed in the exploration. The Greeks with their mother-marrying father-killing gouge-out-your-eyes types of plays were striving for catharsis, that purifying, cleansing renewal of the soul occurring when locked-up feelings and thoughts are given a safe, vicarious release through the evocation of pity (empathy) and/or fear. Theatre has always been a part of my life, even when I didn’t see it or didn’t want it.

A little over two years ago, I was in a production of Terrence McNally’s passion play Corpus Christi at the Old Town Actor’s Studio. Every night, I sang “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord” with my cast mates…my brothers….and then was called by name, recognized and adored, given a new name (Bartholomew), and baptized on that altar called the stage. Every night, I was renewed.

What needed renewal? In the year 2000 I was disfellowshipped from my natal church. Looking back on it now, I realize the disfellowshipment had been going on years before that as I was told as a teenager to hide a big part of who I was. In any case, I spent a few months continuing to attend church, feeling like the living dead. Disfellowshipped members are asked not to lead prayer in church or participate in church discussions. They cannot hold callings or minister in any way. They are encouraged to study scripture, pray often in private, and pay their tithe. These things are supposed to help purify them until they are sufficiently rehabilitated to reenter the community. I wasn't rehabilitated and I didn’t reenter the community. Instead, I moved and dropped out of it entirely. Feeling like a failure...lost, confused, invalidated, guilty, dirty...my communion with my Heavenly Father was intermittent at best. I felt alone.

Spiritual life continued that way for me for almost 15 years. My attendance at Trinity Episcopal while serving as their organist began to revive it, but I was resistant. Parts of my soul were still shut up tight because what I was feeling was at odds with what I had accepted so long ago as truth. Of course the Spirit was there to be felt, but my life path would never lead me to be like my Heavenly Father, so what was the point? I would always be a second-class citizen in the society of God.

Then Jason Bartosic, the director of Corpus at OTAS, prevailed in getting me to audition for his show. He didn’t have to work too hard. I’d been told who else was going to be in the show and I was eager to work with so much talent. So many gifted performers on stage at one time? Sign me up, please! There was so much I could learn and experience!

The rehearsals were revelatory in themselves. So many ideas innovative by Pocatello standards! The fluidity of the set! The novelty of the writing! The brilliance of the conception and direction as a whole! And I had been right about that company of actors. It was an honor to be among them. When the run of performances began, my soul began to open, and as I said before, I experienced renewal.

One night in particular, that renewal penetrated the most carefully guarded cells of my soul.

I believe it was during the second or third performance of Corpus, I was in the middle of my first exchange with Joshua (another name for Jesus and one actually closer to what he was called while on Earth). I looked into my brother Mitch’s eyes (the guy playing Joshua) and I saw instead my Savior looking back at me. The love, compassion, and acceptance filled my heart beyond its size. I felt like I had come back home.

Home! The home I knew before this life. The home that was waiting for me after it. Home! I wasn’t alone. I had never been alone! I had been denying myself my Savior’s love, my Father’s love, a love that wasn’t conditional on my being in good standing with any particular church. A love that wasn’t conditional at all. I walked with my Savior the rest of that performance, aglow, radiant with the love I felt. I supped with Him in the upper room. I kissed His feet. I wept from my heart as I watched Him die on the cross. It was all very, very real...and I was once again in real communion with the Savior I had shut out so long ago.

Science would say it was a trick of conditioning, a trick of the mind. Life as it is, indeed, Mr. O’Toole. Mr. Stephenson. Mr. Murdoch.  I’ve spent plenty of the last 17 years wondering if all the spiritual experiences I’ve ever had were just the result of brainwashing. It’s a harsh possibility to face that at times has left me desolate, hard, and angry. It’s what I often see in others disconnected from their faith, from their Father, from their Home.  However, gifts are only gifts if they’re accepted. Obi wan wisely and a bit smugly told Luke the truth was all dependant on his point of view. The gift of love that God continually and patiently offers me can only be received if I’m willing and ready to accept it. In that moment on that stage, I was ready and I will never be the same.

That said, I still struggle to accept the gift I was given that night. I struggle because I’ve been told repeatedly that I’m not worthy of it. I struggle because I tell myself I’m not worthy of it. I struggle because I wonder from time to time if it’s real. I struggle because I know the dark corners of my own soul. Last year, as I was facing the wrenching conflict of choosing between family and family, I often was too disoriented by stress and grief to remember what I’d seen, too blinded and scared to grasp the hand still reaching out to me. That struggle continues as I deal with the consequences of the choice I made.

But the gift is still there to be accepted, and I’m grateful.

I’m also grateful for the musical and theatrical gifts that led me down my own road to Emmaus. (Perhaps it’s because of the potential in those gifts that darkness has always tried to separate me from them.) Thanks to them, Mr. McNally, Cervantes, my brothers in Texas (and my sister - I love you, MFP!), and above all my Father who in His infinite and unconditional love gave them all to me , I’ll continue tilting at windmills, claiming my noble heritage as a son of God, and seeing Life as it should be.