English: God Appears to Noah, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French, 1836-1902), gouache on board, 8 15/16 x 4 3/8 in. (22.7 x 11.1 cm), at the Jewish Museum, New York (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
something done or granted out of goodwill, rather than fromjustice or for remuneration; a kind act:to ask a favor.
friendly or well-disposed regard; goodwill: to win the favor of the king.
the state of being approved or held in regard: to be in favor at court; styles that are now in favor.
Favor is such a murky thing. There’s no reason given why Noah found favor with God. It never says that Noah was better than anyone else. It doesn’t say he had been faithful or particularly good or honest or deserving. Yet Noah received God’s favor. You see it in other stories across God’s message. Joseph finds favor with God, and Potiphar and Pharaoh. Daniel finds favor with God, and Nebuchadnezzar. Esther found favor with Xerxes and his eunuch. Peter, James, and John found favor with Jesus despite being total boneheads.
I don’t pretend to understand it, I don’t think there’s a formula for it, and I hope that my heart is never misled. Nevertheless, I know that finding favor with God and others can be an important ingredient in accomplishing God’s purposes. When I pray for my children, I pray that they might find favor with God, with their teachers, and with their employers. I regularly pray for God’s favor and the favor of others. Then, I do my best to live and love so as to be worthy of it and prove grateful for it.
[This is part of a series of posts in which I’m documenting the steps I go through when I’m preparing for a role on stage. I thought it might be interesting to someone, somewhere, at some point. For what it’s worth.]
Having done a little background into the playwright and the play. My next step in preparing for a role is to dig into the script itself. I find that a cheap notebook or journal is generally handy to keep throughout the process. I typically grab one of those marbled composition notebooks you can get at any discount store for a buck. With pen and notebook handy, I start reading through the script and get ready to jot down notes, questions that come to mind, and references I want to look up.
Since a lot of classic plays were written decades or centuries ago and many of them refer to a specific period of history, scripts regularly contain references that are lost on an actor living in 2010. If I’m going to give an authentic portrayal of a small town newspaper man in 1906, then I better know exactly who/what I mean when I make references on stage – even if they will be largely lost on the audience. The believability in an actors portrayal hinges on that actor internalizing and knowing what his or her line is talking about.
As I read through the script the first time, I make notes about things that I need to investigate or references I don’t understand. I’m not too concerned with my character yet, though I will jot down thoughts and questions about my character as they come to me. I’m mostly concerned with the setting and references to persons, places, or things with which I’m not intimately familiar. This is particularly true of a period piece like Ah, Wilderness! which is set on a specific date in a specific year (July 4, 1906). O’Neill filled the script with a ton of literary and period references. I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to trivial knowledge, but there were a ton of things I needed to look up and investigate.
Here’s are some examples:
1906: The year the play was set. What was happening in the world at that time? What were the big political issues? Nat Miller is a newspaper man. What stories were big and what stories had he been following and writing about?
July 4: What day of the week was it? What were typical celebrations like in 1906?
Newspaper Editor: What were the issues for editors in that day? What was the business like? How much could you make?
Sachem Club: Reference to senior members of Tammany Hall – an Irish social/political club dedicated to the political advancement and power of the Irish in America. Nat is a member. How did this influence his past/position? How do his Irish roots affect who he is and his world-view?
Buick: Nat owns a Buick. Considering automobiles were relatively new, this is really interesting. What would it have looked like? How much did it cost? How did he afford it? See previous reference of Sachem Club…does he have connections?
Emma Goldman: Russian born anarchist, political activist and speech writer
Carlyle’s French Revolution: Popular victorian history of the Revolution by a Scottish Calvinist who lost his faith but retained his Calvinist values.
Tumbril: an open cart used to carry condemned victims to the guillotine.
“The Ballad of Reading Gaol” – poem by Oscar Wilde written from his experience in prison.
Play by Bernard Shaw banned from Broadway:“Mrs. Warren’s Profession” was initially not allowed to be produced on Broadway because Mrs. Warren ran a brothel.
Old Cap Collier & Nick Carter: serial Detective stories popular with young readers and sold for a nickel/dime.
“Poems and Ballads of Swinburne”: British poet. Contemporary of Oscar Wilde.
“The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam“ – a series of quatrain poems by Persian mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. The title of the play comes from one of his famous quatrains. “Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough, A flask of wine, a book of verse – and thou; Beside me singing in the wilderness; And Wilderness is paradise enough.”
As I dig into references, read the poetry, and learn more about the period in which the piece is set, I’m building an understanding of the broader context in which my character lives, thinks, moves, and relates. I begin to gain a deeper appreciation for what O’Neill was trying to say through the characters and the things that the characters thought about, read, and how they viewed the world.
I’m not even thinking too much about the actual lines yet, but doing this background work will an invaluable help to me as I begin to internalize and interpret them.
Next step: Digging into the Character
[Ah, Wilderness! is being produced by the Theatre Department of Central College under the direction of Ann Wilkinson. It will be performed on the campus of Central College in Pella, Iowa Feb 27 through March 3, 2013.]
After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch lived in close fellowship with God for another 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Genesis 5:22 (NLT)
As a lover of history, I’ve always been interested in genealogy. I think my love of acting has something to do with it, as well. When I learned how to do character studies of those I portrayed on stage, I naturally migrated to doing an on-going character study of myself. “Who am I, and how did I get here?” are natural questions. There are a lot of clues to be found in family history.
I’ve traced the branches of my family tree back a relatively long way. As I pour over the names and dates there is so much that I don’t know. There’s just a name and maybe a birth date or death date. As I get nearer to the present generations, there are names that conjure up scraps of knowledge handed down through the family. I have pictures of my great-grandfather, Daniel Bloem. The one thing the jumps to mind when I see his picture is that he had a drinking problem. There’s a great uncle, James Hendrickson. I know he was a Methodist circuit preacher in Illinois. Family legend holds that he was a good man and had a huge influence on my grandfather. That’s about all I’ve got.
Scraps. Tidbits. Legacy. The vital questions aren’t just “Who am I?” and “How did I get here?” but also “How will I be remembered?” and “What impact will I have on those around me?” What is the bullet point that future generations will remember and repeat about me when they see my name or my picture…
He had a temper. Everyone was afraid of him.
She was really mean. Nobody in the family liked her.
He was known to be the laziest of that generation. He went bankrupt a couple of times.
She was married six times.
He built a successful business, but his children all hated him.
She got married, but her first child was born six months later. Do the math.
As we read through the long list of Adam’s descendants, we are given little information. We have names, life spans and the name of the first born son. Then we get to Enoch and this tidbit of information is passed down to us: “he lived in close fellowship with God.” That’s not a bad legacy considering we’re still talking about it many millennia later.
Each day our words, actions, and relationships are etching the legacy we will leave. What’s the one thing you think people will remember about you? What’s the one thing you want people to remember about you? What will make the difference?
One day Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; listen to me, you wives of Lamech. I have killed a man who attacked me, a young man who wounded me.
If someone who kills Cain is punished seven times, then the one who kills me will be punished seventy-seven times!” Genesis 4:23-24 (NLT)
Wendy and I love movies, books, plays and good television shows. We don’t just numb out when we watch a movie. We’re generally stimulated by it. Silly at it seems,Green Lantern prompted two days worth of conversation about the nature of love and human will (I know, we’re dweebs). We think about what we’re watching and why the writer chose to present things a certain way, why the Director made the choice to picture it like that, and what the actor brought to the performance. We talk about it. Some people roll their eyes and say to us, “Seriously, can’t you just sit back and enjoy it?” But, we are enjoying it when we explore all of the layers of it. Others have said to us, “I love watching movies with you because you see so much more than I do.”
Let me add God’s Message to the list of things that we enjoy digging into. I will admit that my modus operandi for these chapter-a-day posts is usually just to read the chapter in my half-awake state and see what pops in a top of mind kind of way. Many times, however, you have to peel back the layers of what’s been written to appreciate the fullness of the message.
One of the things you learn about movie making is that the very first shot the Director shows you (an “establishing shot”) is often of critical importance. It clues you in to the whole story you’re about to see. So, consider that we’re reading Genesis. This is the beginning of the whole cosmic story. Think of today’s chapter as an “establishing shot.” It’s just the beginning of the movie, but the picture presented in today’s chapter is a foreshadowing of the entire theme of human history.
In today’s chapter, we’re presented with the beginnings of human history after Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden for their disobedience. The chapter presents seven generations (from Adam to Lamech) and is “bookended” with two stories across six generations: Cain (2nd generation) and Lamech (7th generation):
Cain murders his brother and is made a “restless wanderer.” God pronounces judgement and Cain is marked by God that any who seek to avenge Abel by punishing Cain him will face God’s judgement seven-fold.
Lamech takes personal vengeance out on someone who attacked him, points to God’s divine judgement on any who touch Cain, and justifies his own act of murder by claiming that he personally deserves Cain’s divine protection [on steroids].
So, let’s dig in:
Throughout God’s Message, the number seven represents “completion” (e.g. the seven days of creation). So in presenting seven generations we are being given a “complete” picture of something. The number “six” is the number of man (e.g. the number of the anti-Christ in Revelation is 666, the three sixes representing the replacement of the divine trinity with the human – man asserting himself as God) so the six post-Eden generations from Cain to Lamech represent a progression (or actually a regression) of humanity. Cain committed murder and God pronounced judgement of the wrongness of it and exacted punishment. By the sixth generation Lamech was committing murder, justifying his actions, declaring that he was 77 times more important than Cain and replacing God’s justice with his own.
What we see in today’s chapter is the on-going conflict of the Great Story in one snapshot. God creates human beings that they would glorify Him and be in relationship with Him. Instead, they disobey which sets into motion a cyclical, generational and spiritual regression. We dishonor the Creator, reject the divine, and proudly set ourselves up as god of our own lives and existence.
Today, I’m thinking about this spiritual regression pictured across the generations from Cain to Lamech. I’m questioning the prevailing world-view that human beings are inherently good and continually progressing towards some pinnacle of goodness. I’m thinking about my own life and the journey this wayfaring stranger is on. What about my story? Does the story of my life reflect spiritual regression or progression? Does my story resemble The Godfather? The Mission?Pilgrim’s Progress?
The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. Genesis 3:6 (NLT)
It is early January and we’re just coming out of the holiday season. The holidays are a time of feasting and I while I am happy to feast as much as the next bloke, I entered the holidays with a different mind set this year. Over the past year I’ve worked hard to drop a little weight and develop some healthy habits. One of the things that has changed for me in the past year is my appetite for food. Over time I’ve found contentment with much smaller portions and far fewer sweets.
Entering the Christmas and New Year’s holiday this year, I was mindful of how quickly the feasting could derail the good habits I’ve tried to establish. On top of Christmas and New Years we celebrate Wendy’s birthday (Dec 21) and our wedding anniversary (Dec 31). So along with all the Christmas gatherings with family and New Year’s parties with friends was the celebratory dinners out to celebrate Wendy and our wedding.
The food looks so delicious. The plates full of colorful cookies and handmade candies. The huge spreads of food at family gatherings. Look at all the goodies that you get only once or twice a year. Live a little. Have a little nibble. Take a little taste. It’s amazing how quickly the heart, mind and body can react to the cravings of our natural appetites. Once you start pushing the boundary markers, it’s hard to pull them back in.
According to God’s Message, it was our human appetites that got us into trouble in the first place and the human condition hasn’t changed. I talked about it a month or so ago in a message I gave. We are told that there are three core cravings. Our other appetites flow out of them.
Lust of the eyes (“She saw that the tree was beautiful…”)
Lust of the flesh (“…its fruit looked delicious…”)
Pride of life (“…she wanted the wisdom it would give her [to be like God].”)
In retrospect, I didn’t fall completely off the wagon during the holidays. I did, however, let my appetites get the best of me on more than one occasion. I think about the past few days, I think about my choices, and I realize how slowly and subtly I can give in to my cravings until my appetites are once again controlling me.
This morning’s post provides a moment of synchronicity because I’m actually going to be sharing a two part message I’ve entitled Companions for the Journey over the next two Sundays. I’m going to explore the topic of relationships and friendships, and we’ll look at what God’s Message has to say about it as well as sharing some wisdom and practical lessons from my own journey.
I’ve been asked back to help fill in the gap at Westview Church in Waukee (1155 Boone Dr. in Waukee, Iowa) as they anticipate the arrival of their new pastor. I’ll be sharing the morning message on Sunday January 13th and again on Sunday January 20th. The gathering starts at 10:30 a.m.
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”Genesis 2:18 (NLT)
I love the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. I know I’ve mentioned it on this blog before (probably multiple times). It’s one of the movies I could watch over and over again. No matter how many times I see it I can’t get through the ending without the tears welling up in my eyes and dripping down my cheeks. I love simple truths powerfully communicated, and I love when George Bailey opens up the copy of Tom Sawyer to find the inscription:
Dear George, Remember no man is a failure who has friends.
Alone-ness is not a good thing. We need companionship. We need fellowship. We need relationship. We need others walking beside us on our life’s journey. It is the way we were designed and wired by our Creator. We were created to know and be known and even God recognized that our life on this Earth would not be right without other human beings to share the experience. It is one of the first things we learn about humanity in God’s Message.
I am and have been blessed with good companions throughout my life’s journey, but my experience is that these relationships typically don’t just happen by chance. The fruit of good relationship follows seasons of cultivating, plowing, planting, watering, feeding, weeding, and pruning. If we want authentic relationships then we have to prepare ourselves for it, we have to pursue it, and we have to be willing to give time for relationship to grow.
This morning I’m doing a little introspection. I’m thinking about and asking God to reveal to me the ways I can be better at relationships. The further I get in this journey the more I treasure and need meaningful relationships. It starts with me.
Speaking of being an artist, over the next seven weeks I’m going to be involved in a fun creative challenge. I’ve been asked by Director Ann Wilkinson and Theatre Central to be a guest artist and perform a role for their production of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!which will be performed February 27th through March 3rd at Central College.
I thought I might chronicle my experiences in a series of posts here. I get the feeling that many people fail to understand the work and the process that goes into a role they see performed on stage. People go to a play and it looks like the actor simply memorized some lines, put on a costume and just sort of pretended.
Work on my part actually began over the past four weeks as I familiarized myself with the script. The first thing I want to do as an actor is to understand the background of the play, what the playwright was expressing, and what can be learned from past productions of the script. [Thank God for the internet. It makes the process so much easier.]
Eugene O’Neill is known for long, brooding plays like (the five hour long) The Iceman Cometh and A Long Day’s Journey into Night. O’Neill, who wrote from the beginning to middle of the 20th century, was known for plays that were dark, pessimistic and tragic. There was one comic exception: Ah, Wilderness! The comedy, in which O’Neill tapped into autobiographical elements of his childhood, is a coming of age play in a traditional family setting. It is set in 1906 Connecticut on the Fourth of July holiday. It is sweet and sentimental. It is a precursor to Leave It to Beaver, The Brady Bunch, and The Cosby Show.
I’ve been cast in the role of the family Patriarch, Nat Miller. Miller is a small town newspaper man. The role was once played by legendary American humorist Will Rogers. Like the television fathers we’ve come to know and love, Miller is loving and wise but also a bit bumbling and humorously flawed even as he holds the family together.
O’Neill had a lot of issues with his own family growing up. He was the son of an actor (a hard Irish Catholic disciplinarian) and grew up on the road. During his young adult years he spent summers in Connecticut. He had a girlfriend whose father made a huge impression on him. It is believed that O’Neill fashioned the character of Nat Miller based on this man whom he appreciated.
Understanding the background of the play and the larger picture of its history helps me as an actor as I approach the script. It’s not that I have to be limited to what everyone else has done with it in the past or how others have interpreted it, but knowing the context can help me embrace the spirit of the whole as I carve out my own interpretation of it. History isn’t a set of shackles. It is a springboard.
Having done a little bit of background I read through the script. Knowing that the show was first staged in 1933, my mind was sort of in a black and white Hollywood frame of mind. As I read Nat Miller’s lines and pictured the scenes in my head, the voices of different great actors of that era entered my head. I didn’t mean for this to happen. It just sort of did. There was Henry Ford, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart to name a few. My brain catalogued different visions of what these great actors might have brought to the role with different scenes and lines. I don’t want my portrayal to be an impersonation of Jimmy Stewart playing Nat Miller, but envisioning the humor that Stewart might bring to a particular moment fuels ideas of what I might want to try as I communicate as I enter the rehearsal process.
The Artist’s Studio – Jan Vermeer van Delft (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Chapter-a-Day Genesis 1
So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 (NLT)
The first thing we learn about God is that He is an artist. God is a creator. God is creative. He expresses Himself in limitless works of creation. Take a good look around you. Look at space, sky, earth, oceans, landscape, animal, fish, and each uniquely individual human being. God is a master of design, balance, form, line, structure, texture, shape, color and value.
The first thing we learn about humans, both male and female, is that we are made in the image of this Creator. We are like our maker. We are, therefore, creative. We have our Creator’s ability to express ourselves in limitless works of creation.
Connect the dots.
To say, “I’m not creative” or “I don’t have a creative bone in my body” is to believe a lie. It is a denial of our core identity, our spiritual DNA, and of who we were made to be. It is to look at our Creator and say “I don’t belong to Him. I am not His child.”
I personally believe that those who follow Jesus must, now more than ever, reclaim and embrace our birthright as offspring of the Creator if we ever hope to fulfill our journey’s purpose and mission on this Earth.
It’s hard to believe the holidays have come and gone. It was an enjoyable time for Wendy and me. In fact, Wendy commented the other day that these were the most enjoyable holidays for her in many years. For the archives, here’s a run down of what we did this year.
On Sunday the 23rd, Wendy and I hosted the Vander Hart clan (that’s Wendy’s mother’s family) at our house in the afternoon. Eighteen people are a lot to squeeze into Vander Well Manor, but it’s a loving bunch so everyone rubbed elbows and enjoyed appetizers and goodies while we chatted the afternoon away. I enjoyed hanging out with a bunch of the other kids (I’m still a kid, aren’t I?) and catching up on where they are and what they’re doing.
Christmas Eve Day was quiet for Wendy and me. There was nothing on the calendar except for helping video tape the Christmas Eve service at church in the afternoon. Wendy was in the Director’s chair while I helped on camera. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the house, preparing the Christmas meal ahead of time and wrapping a lot of gifts we’d left until the last minute. We were nestled all snug in our bed when Taylor and Clayton arrived in the wee hours. Taylor worked until late and they drove down to be at our house on Christmas morning.
With children coming and going, we haven’t had the chance to make really firm Christmas traditions, but Christmas breakfast is the closest we’ve come to it. This year, Wendy made homemade cinnamon rolls and breakfast casserole. We enjoyed having Clayton and Taylor with us. After breakfast Madison joined us on FaceTime. We’d sent her gifts back to Colorado with her and we all opened gifts together.
Taylor and Clayton headed to Clayton’s mother’s house while Wendy and I cleaned up and headed to Des Moines. We’d made crock pot French Dip and took that with us to the Vander Wells. We had lunch at my folks and then opened gifts in the afternoon before Wendy and I headed back home.
On the 26th, we picked up Wendy’s sister, Becky and her husband, Court, and headed north to the Hall family gathering at Mom & Dad Hall’s place in Boone. It was small gathering as most of the seven siblings and their families were unable to attend. Lucas’ girlfriend Polley joined us from Tennesse, however and maybe it was a good thing that she didn’t get overwhelmed with the entire crew all at once! We had a wonderful Iowa meal of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, stuffing and homemade bread. I piled everything together on my plate swirled it together and dug in! Mmmmmmm.
On Friday night, Dec 28th we went to Des Moines for the afternoon to peruse the after Christmas sales. We then met our friends Kevin and Becky at Chuck’s restaurant where we enjoyed celebrating our anniversary and hearing our friend Heather singing. I was also surprised to find that the piano player was a guy I went to high school with and we enjoyed a nice conversation. It was one of those evenings of sitting down at the table a little after six then enjoying a drawn out meal and entertainment. We didn’t get up from the table until 10:30.
The weekend was fairly quiet. On Saturday Becky & Court drove to Pella and we dined at the Windmill Cafe with Grandma VH, Uncle Mel and Aunt Linda. Becky and Court stuck around and chatted the afternoon away. On Sunday, Wendy and I sat on the couch and cheered the Vikings into the playoffs with a victory over the Packers!
On New Year’s we headed to Chad and Shays for appetizers and wine along with friends Matthew and Sarah. Dinner at Kaldera and then back to our house for Wendy’s cheesecake. Then, it was back to Chad and Shay’s to relieve the babysitter. Chad, Shay, Wendy and I popped the cork on the bubbly and the four of us quietly rang in the new year.
New Year’s Day was when the decorations came down and we worked to clean up the house. Things are back to normal and the routine has already begun to set back in, but it was a restful and loving time with family and friends this year.
