Learn Your Lessons Well

"So, what did you learn?"

This question appears in my life a lot, usually after an experience so hugely changing that it seems like folly to even try to comprehend what just happened in a soundbyte small enough to answer. I've been asked this by many teachers after journeying for a year in their class, and I always hate it a little bit because as I try to think quickly enough to form words that encompass everything that has happened, I sit there looking stupid and unthoughtful for a long time and if/when I finally say something, whatever it is falls woefully short of the impact the class has had on me. I would be entirely unsurprised if, when I died, I found myself face-to-face with God asking me what I learned. Of course, trying to sum up everything in a sentence tends to be a futile effort. All of our experiences keep working on us throughout our lives. But pointing at smaller lessons within the whole is useful. Articulating things is useful. That's a lot of why I've been blogging in the first place. Articulation is useful and sharing is joyous. So...

Ten Things I Have Learned This Summer

1. Love love love love love love love love love love love. Actively. DO IT. IT WORKS. IT IS ALSO THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL EVER DO.

Love everyone. Every. Single. Person. You don't have to like them, but believe in the best of them. Love is a loaded word, and I think loving everyone is about understanding. It is not about discounting or condemning actions we do not agree with - but understanding their motives instead. No one acts truly believe their actions are evil. There is something underlying that we probably don't know about. We are not in a position to judge; it would be on woefully incomplete data. Our job is to love. Assume the best of people - it actually makes a difference. There was once a study where tachers were told that certain young students showed particular intellectual aptitude, but were also told they should treat all students the same. In fact, these students had not done any better than the others on the aptitude test, but they did indeed progress faster than the rest of the class, just because of the unspoken expectation of the teachers. Expectation they weren't even acting on. This stuff MATTERS.

2. There is something to be learned from every single person and situation. God is sovereign. God is in everything.

3. Relate everything back to the world. This was starting at the end of last semester, and has been solidifying this summer. I think it really comes from high school, when I was interested in a lot of things other people didn't care about. I heard a lot of, "Colleen, shut up, no one cares." It was, and still is, a strange adjustment coming to PHTS where the majority of people DO care about what I have to day. (And why the response to this blog has been so phenomenal.) Still, though, I tend to have obscure interests that people don't automatically care about. I can't count on every audience caring about what I care about. (This is my one critique of one of my teacher's shows I saw last year. I thought it was thrilling, exciting, groundbreaking, even, but I felt like the creators assumed that everyone already cared about the subject matter. I didn't. I came into the theatre knowing I didn't care about this, but open and excited for the show to help me care about it.. but it didn't take that step and I felt partially removed.)

Being out in the world, not surrounded by theatre majors, has made me more deeply realize how important it is to be able to say, "This is what I care about, and here's why you should care about it. Here's how it affects you." The most effective lectures I heard this summer were when people took things from theology or something else that seemed far removed, and showed how they shaped our daily lives. THAT is something we can use. This is not to say that this is always cut-and-dry, this isn't about doing theatre pieces loaded with current events info. I happen to think that abstraction has a lot to do with it. I think it is actually more of a Wesleyan idea (oh my goodness! John Wesley! I'm back with the Methodists again!) Methodist churches tend to have clear windows. We'll have some stained glass, yes, but definitely a lot of clear windows. This is so that we can have an eye on the world as we worship. We need to have an eye on the world in everything we do.

4. Observe without judgment. I observe all the time, and the power of observation is not to be underestimated. I love observing. But observation is often linked with judgement. I believe this is because people have a lack of love, and an obsession with right and wrong, and place value on ability instead of on people. So often placed in leadership positions, I know I have to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the people I'm working with. And yes, I've taken people off of things because I know they couldn't handle it. But it seems to me putting them on that particular thing wasn't likely using their gifts in the first place.

5. Get rid of this unuseful idea of right and wrong. All right, Christians! I know! We've sinned! We're all sinning! We're totally depraved and we live in a cesspool of sin! I get it! But we need to get over it. (Yes, Prebyterians, I'm looking at you!) Yes, I think prayers of confession are very important, and help keep us humble which is VITAL. But Christ didn't die for us so we could sit here moaning about how it's all our fault and how awful we are. I don't care if you cringe talking about atonement, substitutionary or otherwise. Christ died so we would no longer be held down by sin.

Here's what I've observed: we get so tied down by doing things "right" or not doing the "wrong" thing that we are unable to learn from our failure and even our successes. The right/wrong, yes/no, black/white mindset blinds us to colors. Somehow, we've done something right or wrong and we thank God/lament that we did so and don't pay attention to what led us there, and shoot in the dark again trying to hit "right". This isn't how it works. We are moving along a journey and there are parts of "right" and parts of "wrong" in everything.

I completely acknowledge that we need something to help us stay on track, towards the positive. I have spent time with Calvinists this summer, after all. I propose "creation"/"destruction". Perhaps the Faith and Environment people got to me... but I think as an artist it makes sense. We don't have much of a stigma about creation/destruction. It is more accepted that creation and destruction can be inherent at the same time - new life after a forest fire, or even the basic agricultural season. (Who understand the secret of the reaping of the grain? Who understands why Spring is born out of winter's laboring pain, or why we must all die a bit before we grow again?) It is also in the story of Christ's death and resurrection. There is redemption in destruction, but none in "wrong". For myself, I'm going to refocus towards creation as opposed to towards right, especially as creation, to me, is the direct continuing on God's work in the world.

6. Don't blow into a mic to mic check it. Really. This is the worst thing you can do to a mic. On nice mics, you might blow the ribbon. Also, don't stop talking when people are checking your mic. Like, "Is it on?" (silence). The sound board is probably far enough away that the people checking can't easily say, "Yes!" for you to hear, and the reason you might not hear your mic at first is because we start lower and then turn the mic up, so that we don't get nasty feedback immediately when you start talking. Stage monitors are a privilege, not a right; use them wisely. Make sure your mic pack is on before you go onstage.

7. The value of a life spent in service is not to be dismissed.

8. The Spirit working through you performs miracles. The Spirit is vital. You are vital. Holly collaboration.

9. When I confront problems, I often find they're not as big as I thought they were. When I don't confront them, I don't find this out and they grow in my head and often in reality. I need to remember this.

10. Never forget joy, never lose hope. We choose the actions we take. We can choose to hope, we can choose to praise, or we can choose not to. Sometimes the choice is very hard. A depressive episode hit on Tuesday, the day before I left Montreat. Since leaving Montreat already wasn't going to be the happiest endeavor, everything was terribly different. My temper was very short and the effort required to choose positivity was staggering. (It's like trying to have quick reactions while moving in molasses.) I'm still working on how to deal with that, in particular, how to make sure that what's going on in my head and body doesn't hurt others around me. But even within that, you can still make the choice. Even when it's the hardest thing to do. We sang "Great is They Faithfulness" in church on Sunday and I noticed the lyric, "Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow," and I thought, "Yes." "Morning by morning new mercies I see." God is there with that hope always. But it is up to us to choose it.

Maybe it's just me, but I really do believe joy is vital. Maybe I've been living my life with undercover joy (oh no! Light under a bushel!). But so much comes back to joy. There's something about release and expression in that. I got a comment about my acting in a scene I was in last semester, directed by my absolutely brilliant friend Allie, who brings out the best in me. I loved the character and the scene and could identify with it far too closely to be legal. I mean, the character was obsessed with an opera, had seen it twenty-eight times but just HAD to travel to see its closing performance. I mean, it's not like I approached my parents in the summer of 2006 to explain exactly why I should be allowed to make a trip up to New York to see Sweeney Todd close when I'd already seen it seven times, especially when I'd have to start my senior year of high school the day after I got back. Anyway. The comment was, "I just saw joy." Seems significant with joy being a guiding force that I've denied for a good amount of my life.

And now, because it is also useful:

Five Things I'm Currently Immensely Curious About/Obsessed With

1. How can theater training help pastors (beyond what I've already thought about voice work for preachers and lay readers)? How can the storytelling focus of directing translate to sermons and services?

2. How can the technical aspect of sound and a mic work (frequencies, etc.) and the emotional, expressive aspect of voice work interact and interplay with each other?

3. In novels, a writer can describe what is going on in someone's head. How can we do that onstage? I know a lot of it has to do with framing moments, but I'm wondering how we can really twist the form. Not Jordan Harrison style narration, but more character psychology. Slash how can we more obviously show how one thing affects another?

4. I visited with my brother on Sunday. He's five years older than me, we are a very interesting pair, and he has always been into video games. When we were younger this meant getting motion sick as he made me watch him play Quake II, but now I'll listen to him talk about what certain video games say, how they engage the player, their use of music and sound, even the mise-en-scène of video games. We're all after the same thing. Getting messages and ideas across, affecting the audience viscerally. How can theatre and video games learn from each other? (In this vein, I'm interested in the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU.)

5. Intimacy. I don't understand it, what it is, how it functions in life. I know that I crave it and I'm absolutely terrified of it. I know it has to do with how much I love voice work. I know when I've hit on intimate moments and I'm amazed by it. I definitely don't know what to do about it. I want to work on tackling this, figuring out what my deal with intimacy is. I think theatre can create intimacy between everyone in the space. I want to do that.

I think the thing I'm most curious about, though, is what's in store for me. Starting my third year of college, I'm having to think about what happens the day after I graduate. Especially since theatre doesn't have the greatest employment rate, I've got an unacceptable amount of student loans, and New York is not a cheap place to live. I've got ideas that I can act on, some plans, but really, I have no clue. I doubt I'm going to have an easily trackable, marked "career" in one thing. I think it will be enormously exciting. What God has revealed of his plan so far is thrilling.

People asked a lot if I'm coming back next summer. It's extremely likely (read as: almost definite) that Montreat will hire me back if I apply, which is probably the closest thing to "job security" that I'll ever experience. I cannot predict my life in a year, and I don't want to give a definite answer when I honestly don't know. I loved it there. I would love to go back. If God wants me there, I will be there. If God wants me somewhere else, I will be somewhere else. That's what it boils down to.

My immediate future, however, contains the dentist. I have no been flossing well and thus have deal with between-teeth cavities. I'm always interested in Novocaine and how it affects speech, so that will be fun.

(I almost disgust myself at times. Here's the bright side of getting my teeth drilled!)