It Takes Two

We watched Into the Woods recently at the Los Angeles Ahmanson Theatre. We've seen the Broadway recording and the movie but had never seen it on stage before. The songs are marvelous and the play itself is a fascinating exploration of fables, expectations, aspirations, and disappointments. What seems like a fairy tale with a happy ending soon ends up with confusion in the woods.

And as any person on a journey, whether on the Camino de Santiago or in our daily struggles, we sometimes are lost in woods. And we don't know we're lost. Or we play it safe, stay out of the woods, and never realize that we're not making any progress on our journey, not when we just lock ourselves up, locking up our hearts, shutting out our dreams.

As Pentecost approaches, I think about the Holy Spirit coming alive in each of us, emboldening us, enjoining us. It was God's visit to the disciples, just sitting in their rooms, giving them the ability and the courage to come out and speak truth.

I think it's appropriate that LGBT pride celebrations happen around the time of Pentecost. The protests that sparked these annual celebrations were ignited when the oppressed and maligned, blackmailed and abused drag queens of New York's Greenwich Village finally had enough. And they were inspired to speak out, stir up trouble, make their different stories of oppression in their different voices heard. That's a Pentecostal story to me.

Rev Ed Bacon, the former Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, sent me an email this morning, as a response to a series of emails, that just said "Holy Ignition! Alleluiah!". And I thought, "that's a Pentecostal message!"

I think of the Holy Spirit igniting each one of us to see past our fears, our hurts, our ills. The Spirit challenges us in times of deepest, darkest trials. By ourselves, we cannot do it. We cannot change. And though we hear the message of Christ, though we hear the message of justice, is that enough to get us out of our places of comfort? Or our places of pain? Or our places of self-satisfaction?

No, it takes two. We need the Holy Spirit to help us follow Christ, and She's there if we want Her. I think the Holy Spirit's breath is a powerful but quiet force. We can't hear it unless we are open to hear Her.

And when we do listen, we can invite Her into our hearts. We can live together, move together, breathe together.

And in those dark woods, I think we discover what God made us to be.

I realized during my morning contemplations that a song from Into the Woods reminds me of what's possible when we're lost or weak or scared or hurting. So I sang it with the idea of the Holy Spirit descending into each of us.

You've changed You're daring You're different in the woods More sure More sharing You're getting us through the woods If you could see You're not the man who started And much more open-hearted Than I knew You to be It takes two I thought one was enough It's not true It takes two of us You came through When the journey was rough It took you It took two of us It takes care It takes patience and fear and despair To change Though you swear To change Who can tell if you do It takes two You've changed You're thriving There's something about the woods Not just Surviving You're blossoming in the woods At home, I'd fear We'd stay the same forever And then out here You're passionate Charming Considerate Clever It takes one To begin, but then once you've begun It takes two of you It's no fun But what needs to be done You can do When there's two of you If I dare It's because I'm becoming Aware of us As a pair of us Each accepting a share Of what's there We've changed We're strangers I'm meeting you in the woods Who minds What dangers I know we'll get past the woods And once we're past Let's hope the changes last Beyond woods Beyond witches and slippers and hoods Just the two of us Beyond lies Safe at home with our beautiful prize Just the few of us It takes trust It takes just A bit more And we're done We want four We had none We've got three We need one It takes two It Takes Two Into The Woods Stephen Sondheim

I sang these words and I recognize how I'm different in the woods.

But it takes two.

Who am I

I watch certain films during Lent. Chocolat. Les Miserables (1995 concert version).

This year, I was particularly moved by the song "Who am I". It comes after Inspector Javert feels he's captured the Jean Valjean, prisoner 24601, who abandoned the terms of his parole. Unwittingly, he tells the mayor, who in fact is Jean Valjean but under an assumed name. Jean Valjean must face whether he continues in his disguise, maintain his office, sustain his successful business, and escape prison, but causing an innocent man to go to jail. Or he could reveal his identity and lose his business and position.

From the lyrics to "Who am I" from the musical Les Miserables If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned! I am the master of hundreds of workers. They all look to me. How can I abandon them? How would they live If I am not free? If I speak, they are condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned! Who am I? Can I condemn this man to slavery Pretend I do not feel his agony This innocent who bears my face Who goes to judgement in my place Who am I? Can I conceal myself for evermore? Pretend I'm not the man I was before? And must my name until I die Be no more than an alibi? Must I lie? How can I ever face my fellow men? How can I ever face myself again? My soul belongs to God, I know I made that bargain long ago He gave me hope when hope was gone He gave me strength to journey on Who am I? Who am I? I am Jean Valjean! And so Javert, you see it's true That man bears no more guilt than you! Who am I? 2 4 6 0 1

I normally love this song because it brings me to tears. This year, however, I found myself actually sobbing. 

The tears flowed not because I'm a former prisoner, but because the parallels feel so true right now. Was I a literal prisoner? No. Did I feel like a prisoner? Yes. When I was in the closet, I felt oppressed and unable to be myself. I got glimpses of a happier choice as a pre-med student who loved working in caring gerontology environments, helping the elderly, healing people in spirit. But I chose not to enter that profession because of the emotional nature of working with dying patients. I since then have worked for the sake of work.

Today, I lead a pleasant life with a wonderful husband who I adore. I enjoy a certain freedom in my business and get to travel. 

And yet, I daily face the question of "Who am I"? It's the same question I faced when I was a prisoner in the closet. It's the question I asked when I left the medical career. In some ways, my freedom from that world allowed me to flourish and be financially secure. I've also since returned to the Church and have a deep relationship with God.

So what has happened this year? Why am I facing a choice about me as I live versus me as my true self? Was it the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage? Perhaps. I undoubtedly feel as though I'm on a spiritual journey. In the end, I think it's this Lenten season, coming soon after a big pilgrimage.

Lent asks us to go deep into our search for God and our place on earth. We're asked to find God by being true to ourselves as we were created. Anything that distracts us from our true selves distracts us from God. Anything that distracts us from God is temptation. 

We usually say that temptation distracts us from God. But in many ways that allows us to wiggle out of our responsibilities because we don't have to define temptation. 

Anything that distracts us from God is temptation.

So this Lent, I face the temptations that surround us and find that almost everything that isn't about helping, caring, nourishing, welcoming, healing is a temptation. Because on my journey of faith, I find God in Creation and in people. If my relationship with people and creation are not central, then it's a distraction to God. Or, if it's not about relationships and creation, it's a distraction, a temptation, from God.

Fine, how do you make a living without the distraction of work? I'm not sure I know the answer. It's certainly not going to be an easy answer. One can depend on others for their livelihood but at some point, somebody has to help create a sustainable place to live and and find food to eat.

As such, like most, I lead a balanced life, lifting up when possible the aspirational goals but held down in the ashes from which we came because we're expected to live life a certain way.

So who am I? 

"My soul belongs to God, I know. I made that bargain long ago. He gave me hope when hope was gone. He gave me strength to journey on. Who am I? Who am I?"

That's the question that will follow me throughout this Lenten pilgrimage.

It's not Kinky

Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance. It utterly amazes me that people have so much fear of sexual diversity. More specifically, it shocks and disgusts me when weekly you read about another gay bashing or assault if not murder of a transgender person.

On top of that, I found it ironic and embarrassing that an individual who made the news yesterday was called a "former man". The person, made famous because of a purported relationship with Olympic athlete Michael Phelps, apparently was born intersex, but even today half the media reported that she was born male. The lack of understanding not only runs deep, but it almost smacks of resistance to understand biology and denial of the existence of intersex people.

Even in supposedly progressive times and communities, such errors are widespread. How do we ask people to understand that it's not a sin to be born a certain way, that it's not a sin to be raised a certain way by your parents and family, that it's not a sin to discover that God's plans for you are to live your life as intended, not in a false, error-laden, bullied way? We do so by reminding them that life is diverse and multi-hued.

My clothes, shoes, music, and books vary tremendously. I gain so much more when the things that inform me and the items that represent me are as varied as my moods and my interests. Likewise, we as a people are so much better off if we respect the variety around us and not try to pigeon hole people into shoes that don't fit.

Tonight, I watch the play Kinky Boots at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. I first saw the musical on the big screen and then on stage on Broadway. It was delightful and magical. It showed that all people can make assumptions about others, both good and bad, something that we all can do on any given day. What makes the show so enjoyable is that what is superficially considered kinky and unusual does in fact offer appealing attributes that are both challenges and opportunities for those who look beyond the surface.

That's what makes life so special to me. If we look beyond our own limitations, our own blinders and biases, we can find a world out there that enriches, and a world inside of us that enlivens. It's knowing that we can be both unusual AND essential that allows us to express our humanity in a more honest and purposeful way.

Those of us born with unusual characteristics can't choose the cross they've been given, but all of us can choose to affirm so-called kinky if that's what it means to be honest and alive.

Is Anybody There?

One of my favorite musicals since I was in middle school is 1776, by Sherman Edwards. The tunes were good, but more importantly, the book was exceptional and made history musically engaging.

I was thinking of one of the key songs, as sung by John Adams, well before he was President.

Is anybody there?
Does anybody care?
Does anybody see what I see?
They want to me to quit; they say
John, give up the fight
Still to England I say
Good night, forever, good night!
For I have crossed the Rubicon
Let the bridge be burned behind me
Come what may, come what may
Commitment!
The croakers all say we'll rue the day
There'll be hell to pay in fiery purgatory
Through all the gloom, through all the gloom
I see the rays of ravishing light and glory!
Is anybody there? Does anybody care?
Does anybody see what I see?
I see fireworks! I see the pageant and
Pomp and parade
I hear the bells ringing out
I hear the cannons roar
I see Americans - all Americans
Free forever more
How quiet, how quiet the chamber is
How silent, how silent the chamber is
Is anybody there? Does anybody care?
Does anybody see what I see?

These are the words of an inspired leader. He clearly sees us in a new place, a separate place, not because he lusts for fireworks, pomp, and parade. He sees those as by-products of his dream that all Americans can be free of the political bondage and yoke of Britain.

But it doesn't come easy. And in the still quiet room, he ponders if anyone is listening. Or worse, is anybody even there.

Existential thoughts such as these come across my mind often during Lent. Are we seeking freedom from our mortal pains in futility? Why can't we solve our problems with poverty, homelessness, addiction, and so on? Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

I'm not so arrogant to think that I've got the only solutions, or that I'm the only one who cares. The character of John Adams in this play may seem so, but I think most people know others who do indeed care. But it all seems so intractable at times.

And it leads me to wonder how God can allow such pain to exist? Doesn't He care? Isn't She there?

I'm fairly certain that whether these questions can get answered isn't up to God. It's up to me. I think there might be three steps for moving past the psychic trauma caused by dwelling on these questions.

1. Trust God.

Questioning God is an easy past-time. It certainly is normal to doubt our leaders, parents, bosses, and other figures of authority. During Lent, when all these thoughts foam up in my head, I have to be able to say, "Despite it all, I trust God." It's comforting, relaxing us like possibly the atheistic opiates are thought to work. But it moves further than that to me. Even if God doesn't exist, my trust in something calms me and strengthens me to sally forth. One cannot trust and be strengthened in a non-being. So regardless of whether God exists or cares, I march trusting because it's without doubt better than the alternative to me.

2. Allow God into our lives

This is actually harder than it seems. Once you trust God, you have to hand over the keys and let God drive. Control freaks like me hate handing over the keys. It's my car/life and I can drive it better than anyone else can, even if they have better driver's training scores than I got. It happens all the time in our lives and yet we forget that by building barriers to God, we aren't really trusting God. We're lamenting at something that we're causing. Lent reminds me of this and allows me to focus on ways of creating space for God in my life.

3. Waiting for God

Lastly, in that control freak way that bugs me most, I need to remember to get past the question of God, I have to be willing to wait. Waiting isn't easy for most. I get nastiest, rudest, and meanest when I'm forced to wait. And it's in that failing that I am pushing away God further and further away. I pray hardest at Lent to have the patience in life and so as to give God time to work on me and those around me.


My challenge at Lent is to allow these questions and steps to flow through me, with me, and beyond me as I pray on my journey.

Synthesis. Musicals in time for Lent

I'm only a cock-eyed optimist

Sorry to throw out lyrics from Dick and Oscar, but it certainly was a weekend that I can only describe as affirming. I didn't expressly select plays that somehow made me think of faith, but perhaps it was my subconscious at work. With Lent rapidly approaching, I had no idea that I was buying Broadway tickets that would certainly give me something to think about during this annual fast.

(And certainly I have a tendency to make comparisons where none ought ever be made, so forgive me if I make my contrast too oddly. Or gush. I am a theater queen I admit.)

I went to the Great White Way this weekend and saw "Billy Elliot", "Altar Boyz" and "In the Heights". Not as overwhelming as seeing 7 plays in 5 days with my nephews in London back in 2007, but still pretty intense.

It turns out that these three musicals will give me plenty to think about during this Lenten season. Now I had seen Billy Elliot during that 2007 trip, but had not seen the New York production. The other two plays were new to me, with "In the Heights" a particular concern, since I feared that it would be Rent-redux and far outside my musical tastes.

Thank heavens God intricates his love in the oddest of ways.

Let's go in sequence. I first saw Billy Elliot the movie in 2000 when it was released. I easily connected to the story because I lived in the UK during the 1980s miner strike. Maggie Thatcher was the most polarizing leader I had ever watched, well, until recent years.

This New York musical closely resembled the London offering. It inspired because, to me, it connected to us most strongly when it asserted that
a) God-given gifts must be nourished
b) we must be attentive to God's signs, even in the most unlikely of places
c) it is possible to rise above circumstances that even Job would think worse than his own

For Saturday's matinee, I saw Altar Boyz, which was an amusing satire on boys band. In this situation, we watched a Roman Catholic boy band work its Christian rock magic. It was a surprising delight. The music wasn't challenging, but it was a toe-tapping pleasure. With the talented dancing, you got a good show, good music and cute actors; hey off-Broadway knows how to sell seats.

Altar Boyz was amazingly respectful of religion. Atheists may have watched it as an entirely mocking work, but in no way at all did it actually ever insult faith. These characters sincerely believed and wanted, in their own way. to evangelicize. Matthew was a strong leader, Mark was a loving talent, Luke was the faulty everyman who tries and tries, Juan was a starry-eyed Lothario, and Abraham, well, he's the Jew who wrote great lyrics. How Broadway can you get?

I found the play encouraging because
a) it showed that God works the youth, even with fun-though-slightly-insipid boy-band music
b) I could relate to one of its story lines, that of the "closet Catholic"
c) we saw the bonding strength of Christian community and family.

Lastly on Saturday night, I saw "In the Heights". This was an amazing musical. Its tagline is "No pare, no pare, sigue, sigue", which roughly translates to "don't stop, go on, go on".

Now that's gotta be the most hopeful Broadway tagline I've ever seen.Perhaps that's because it started off-broadway. Or that it's very Mundial Latino. There has not, in my recollection, ever been as diverse a cast, save the United Nations scene in the 1960s campy Batman the Movie.

This play had a song called "Pacencia y Fe" (Patience and Faith). It heroicized family, courage in the face of adversity, community, faith, hope,... I don't know where to stop without this sounding like one of Father Ed's sermons. I was "Epiphing" for almost 3 hours straight.

And I cried. I cried because the sentimental book did not seem a weakness to me. No, it affirmed to me why I believe in the first place.

"In the Heights" asserted
a) bravery, quiet or otherwise, will arise BECAUSE we believe and hope
b) all people, great or small, still aspire and should aspire to the heavens
c) we cannot learn on our own, but depend on the dreams, mistakes and love of those who preceeded us

Perhaps I'm writing this as a part of my Lenten exercises. But I have to wonder what made this weekend so moving to me.

I think it's because I started with a play that said "Life sucks. Maybe if God gave you a gift, your family and community will stand behind you, and you can escape. And thank heavens, because every one will be out of work for hundreds of miles in the next two years."

I love Billy Elliot. But in context with this weekend, it's somehow profoundly inadequate. What Grace did God have for the miners? He gave them an example of love and community, so that their souls could rise about their circumstances. But their earthly toils were not only dangerous, but unneeded. Turn your attention to the miners' plight (which is easy given this country's current economic meltdown), and you realize this play works only when you focus on Billy himself.

Altar Boyz also emphasized a tight-knit family, in the form of a boy band. It wasn't deep by any means. Nevertheless, the sincerely loving faith was notable.

So was the desire to spread His word.And of all things, the closet-Catholic song closely resembled my own faith issues. I spurned the Roman Catholic church of my family because it did not welcome me. It loved me as a sinner, but could not countenance me living out the life that God had set for me.

So I went into the closet. Not as a gay young man. As a person of faith. I cry every time I think of this. I cry whenever I hear of others who were so hurt by their Christian communities that they find Christ and his message at fault. It was an amazing rebirth for me to discover that God did not plague me as a subset of Mankind unworthy of his Grace, God did not challenge me with an impossible test where the only way to succeed was through constant deception (self and otherwise). God made me in his image and challenged me to spread his word of unfailing love an Grace.

And those Altar Boyz, faulty and amusing to my generation as they are, well, they are sincere in their love of God. Who's to say that the classical and jazz Christian music I sing is better than theirs? They did magic on the soul! If the point is to touch, to nurture, to salve broken hearts, then good grief, the play made its point.

But the focus of Altar Boyz and Billy Elliot was very much about the ego. "In the Heights" was the last play I saw, and it filled the gaps that the other two plays left untouched.

It yells out "Ego schmego". It's not a bad thing to have, but a person's ego can only get them so far. You'll be a big shot in your world, though it's a world that only barely covers a subway map. But instead, by using your gifts, using God's gifts, using the love and strength of a family and a community, you'll be surprised at how much stronger, happier, and satisfying your life will be.

It's a point that far exceeds the first two plays. Perhaps because the author was the, in his words, "the only begotten son of a minister and a church organist". In terms of a satisfying arc of faith and hope, of what Lent teaches us as we approach Easter, it was pretty bitchin.

So, despite my naive, touristy and unsuspecting plans, I had a weekend of Epiphing in the Big Apple. May my Lenten fast and volunteerism at the homeless shelter add to my growth. And I pray that the Lord strengthen in me a little more of that toe-tapping, God-loving, can't-shake-my-faith cock-eyed optimism of life everlasting that all of us are Graced to deserve.

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