April the 1st ended the six performance run of the Roswell Community Little Theatre’s production of “The Prisoner”. I had the tremendous privilege of portraying the title role, a Catholic Cardinal in a post World War II eastern European country who is arrested by the new totalitarian government. The character goes through an agonizing process of interrogation, under which he eventually breaks. The Cardinal learned some very important lessons while he was kept in cell #6, and so did I. The following are some of the lessons I learned through performing this incredible play.

(1) My pride is a facade.

My character came across very self-assured, even to the point of cockiness, at the first of the play. But he discovered something that he had actually always known – that his pride was a facade, a cover for the personal conflict he had buried deep within his being. He even said, “I put a scholar’s gown on it, wrapped it in a cassock, pride to cover it, and success to justify the pride…always something to prove what wasn’t there.”

Although my inner demons are not the same ones that plagued the Cardinal, I have found myself covering up my personal struggles with the things at which I excel. I hate to admit it as much as my character hated to admit it – I have a facade that has to be torn down in order to find my true self.

(2) My mother is a whore.

The Cardinal’s mother actually was a whore, and that fact colored his childhood with memories that haunted him throughout his life as he tried to prove his worthiness through extreme faithfulness to his calling as a priest. He even separated himself from his mother to the point where he had lost touch with her. This left an opening for the Interrogator to use that terribly damaged relationship against him.

Although my own childhood was much more normal, and I was blessed with a loving relationship with my parents, there were still dysfunctions in my family, as there are in every family, that I’ve had to face over the years. Even during the last decade, I’ve had to own up to life patterns that were destructive.

The mother in the play is not only a symbol of my (and your) dysfunctional physical families, but she also symbolizes the dysfunction in our religious lives. Augustine famously said, “The church may be a whore, but she’s my mother.” I’ve met very few people who have not been hurt at one point or another by their religious experience. What Augustine meant (and what the play reminded me) was that the church, in spite of being one of the most fallible institutions in existence, is still the place where he (and I) discovered the beauty and power of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Indeed, life can come forth even from the womb of a whore.

(3) My will can be broken by a half-truth.

The Interrogator eventually found the human weakness that would break the Cardinal. Oddly enough, that weakness was humility. The Interrogator explained to the Warder near the end of the play that their prisoner was broken by a half-truth. He said the Cardinal believed him when he told him that his whole life was built on pride. “A proud man would have been more skeptical,” is a line that will stay with me.

The Cardinal’s facade of pride was there just to cover up a humility stemming from a sense of unworthiness because of the trauma of his childhood. Insert my own experience (or yours) into that last sentence, and you’ll have something to chew on for a long time.

(4) My future is found in forgiveness.

My character found a peace in accepting his execution, even though it was based on lies. Before this experience of interrogation, he would have lacked the spiritual capacity to sense God’s forgiveness. Afterward, he was able to say, “He who will judge us is He who made us.” When the government commuted his sentence, he faced the worst agony of all…the thought of facing the people who were devastated by the lies he was led to tell. Yet he even rejected the Interrogator’s merciful offer to shoot him so that he wouldn’t have to step out into that very different world. He chose to face “my victims, my judges, and my future.”

The forgiveness he found from God was his strength to face whatever the world outside that cell might throw at him. I can’t help but be thankful that I’ve been able to learn that same lesson. I have absolutely no doubt that I am forgiven by God. Because of that forgiveness, the pain from my past doesn’t have to be covered by a facade of pride. And my future is easily entered, because I’ve learned the lessons of cell #6.

“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.”(Matthew 11:7-8)

The words of Jesus of Nazareth…words spoken in the midst of a conversation about his cousin, John…John, who had found himself in Herod’s prison cell because he touched one nerve too many with his prophetic judgement against the king’s very public adultery.

John’s view from his prison cell was not an attractive one, and second thoughts about announcing that his cousin was the Messiah were eating away at his faith. When he sent the, “Are you really the one?” question to Jesus in verses 2-3, the answer he got back had nothing to do with political power or overthrowing the oppressor. Instead, the signs Jesus pointed to involved healing, resurrection, and hope (verses 4-5)… down payments of a different kind of kingdom. Somehow he was certain John would understand.

But he wasn’t through talking about John. He turned to the crowds and asked, “What did you go out to see…?” And when he offered the choice, “a reed shaken by the wind”, it’s likely that he had in his mind the coin Herod had made picturing a reed as a symbol of himself, his authority, his power. Not clear enough? He went further. “But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.” Clearly a shot at Herod.

A delineation…a clear contrast of powers…the earthly kind of power that finds itself residing in frail human containers dressed up in the finest of royal garments vs. the divine kind of power that finds itself residing in frail human containers clothed in camel hair, the garment of the working poor. The soft, royal garments of political and economic privilege flutter in the breeze…indeed, they are blown about from all directions…like a reed shaken by the wind. But supernatural strength clings to humbly-clothed honesty like a heavy garment of camel skin.

Then…then Jesus gives John the highest compliment possible in verse 11 – that “among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist” – at least it was the highest compliment possible until he added the next line, “but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

This kingdom…this kingdom of heaven is the crux of the matter. Jesus goes on to say in verse 12 that from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. I’ve heard sweat-soaked sermons proclaiming that we have to violently take hold of the things of God…His truth, His ways. Those sermons have morphed from the religious right into calls for dominion…taking this country back to its moral and religious roots. And those sermons have also morphed from the religious left into calls for social justice…a revolution that will liberate the oppressed. Both extremes have been seen in every age…including the age into which Jesus spoke.

But what if Jesus was not talking about cooperating with the kingdom of heaven through violence? What if he was referencing those who had been trying to prevent the effects of that kingdom since the days of John…in other words, the softly-clothed King Herod and all he represented…political power, military power, economic power, religious power, personal power. Any voice, like John’s, which points out the moral corruption that is the natural outgrowth of that power and points to another kingdom, has to be silenced…violently.

Indeed, Jesus later found himself on the receiving end of that violence. And as he hung in naked frailty on that violent symbol of the power of Rome and Jerusalem, he allowed himself to become the ultimate victim of all the shaking reeds in the history of the world and freed us from having to depend on them.

So…what does all of that mean for us right now? It means that we’d better be very careful to answer Jesus’s question correctly. What did we come out into the wilderness to see? Are we looking for our answers in the king’s house or in the prophet’s prison? Are we looking for a political answer to a spiritual question? Are we as Americans expecting more from our democratic process than it can deliver? When we look in political races for the kingdom of heaven or for someone announcing the kingdom of heaven or even for someone who stands for the truths of the kingdom of heaven, are we looking within a system that, like every other political system in the history of the planet, is diametrically opposed to that kingdom?

Any person who comes to that system, whether from the right or from the left, with the intent to make it fit into the kingdom of heaven, inevitably ends up putting on the soft clothing of compromise. The kingdom of heaven cannot and will not fit inside any earthly system, because it is, as Jesus told Pilate, not of this world.

So as we watch the political maneuvering over the next few months, let’s keep it in perspective. It is right and good for us to be involved in our country’s political process only if we recognize it for what it is…a very fallible system that can do some immediate good but will never be able to provide the ultimate answers. The ultimate answers will not come from the dominion sought by the right or the liberation offered by the left, because every person who aspires to a position inside that system ends up being blown about like a reed in the wind. And, I don’t know about you, but that is not what I came out to see.

Here’s Part 2:

This is Part 1 of a video treatment of a story I wrote and performed two Christmases ago. I filmed and edited completely with my iPad 2.

Check out this special short film I did with my 3 year-old twin grandsons when they came to our house for 10 days this December.

Here’s the short film I blogged about in the last post:

I recently had the opportunity to portray a character in a short film that was part of the 1st annual Roswell International Sci-Fi Film Festival.  Five winning original screenplays were chosen to be produced in a week-long “shoot-out”, where the filming and editing had to be done from Saturday morning, June 25th, to the following Saturday morning, July 2nd.  The finished product had to be less than 13 minutes long.  The five films were judged by a panel of professionals in film and education, and the results were announced the evening of the 2nd.  Our film, “Reset”, won Best Picture.  My co-star won Best Actress.  And I won Best Actor.  It was a great night!

When we first got the cast and crew together, I realized quickly that I was the oldest on the set…by a long shot.  A few were approximately 20 years younger than me, but most were more than 30 years younger.  One of the purposes for the contest is to give students in the film programs throughout New Mexico the opportunity to have hands-on experience in the making of a film.

I was reminded that I might be older than I thought I was because of the way this crew of young people respected and protected me.  It was funny to me that they were concerned that I might not be able to bend over for an extended period while the camera was focused over my back.  By the time we were filming the scene where I had to take a bit of a tumble while being pursued by an “entity”, I guess they figured I could handle it.

I was also reminded that I’m younger than I thought I was, because I enjoyed being around this group of people who were young enough to be my children.  I observed their struggles to find their places in the project mixed with an excitement of being part of a cause bigger than themselves.  I could remember experiences of my own at that age as I first learned how to fit my dreams and talents into the bigger picture of creating something together with others.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from the experience was that, unlike portraying a character’s development on stage, acting in a film means that you have to be ready to film scenes out of sequence.  In other words, you may be filming a scene near the end of the film before you film one that happens much earlier.  What that said to me was that you have to know your character well enough to portray the essence of that character at any time.

I think that’s true in life as well.  It’s of ultimate importance to know who you are at the core before you try to play out the scenes in your life, because many times you don’t know what the next scene will be…even if you think you have everything planned out in detail.  For me, knowing who I am at my core is tied to my belief that I am unconditionally loved and forgiven by God, who is my Creator and my Father.  That belief is the foundation of every scene that plays out in my life.  And I’m looking forward to the day when God will hand me the award for Best Actor in my own story.

This special story is my Father’s Day tribute to my daddy.

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Here’s a fun shot of my mother.  Clyde must’ve already been inside the bank!

Let me offer a few early morning thoughts on the death of Osama Bin Laden.

First of all, as an American (and a fellow American to those who lost loved ones on 9/11 and in the wars that have ensued from it), I feel a sense of relief that a form of justice has taken place. I’m thankful for the work of our military and intelligence communities as well as the resolve of Presidents Bush and Obama.

However, as a follower of Jesus (I’m purposely not using “Christian”, because it’s been co-opted to mean something far different these days), I’m disturbed by the lack of balance in the expressions of elation tinged with hatred I’m seeing on television and online…many of which are coming from people who I know profess to believe in Jesus. I’ve seen only a few lonely voices reminding us of the words of the One I’ve given my life to follow: “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)

I can actually think of only a few times over the past ten years when I took the time to pray for OBL. Love him? I can’t say I did. Did you? And, oh yes, Jesus said a few things about forgiveness as well. Did I forgive OBL? Did you?

I don’t know if OBL had the Afghani or Pakastani version of a “Damascus road experience”, but I do know that Saul of Tarsus was a mass-murderer who targeted followers of Jesus and yet was divinely tapped to be one of the greatest messengers of that same Jesus. Did any of us hope or pray that same thing for OBL – or even believe it was possible?

Perhaps it’s time to stop judging Osama Bin Laden and look at ourselves. Do we truly speak and act with the love and compassion of Jesus, or have we become so entrenched in the thoughts and emotions of our temporary citizenship that we can exult in the death of anyone, no matter how much of a monster he was? The Bible also says in Ezekiel 18:23 (The Message), “Do you think I take any pleasure in the death of wicked men and women? Isn’t it my pleasure that they turn around, no longer living wrong but living right – really living?”

Can there be justice built on a foundation of love and forgiveness? I certainly hope so. If not, the God I worship is a failure. And I don’t think that’s the case!