The Glass

One of my favorite memories of acting class was with my friend Mike.  I will call this moment "the glass of death."  Jean, our glamorous diva of an acting professor explained the exercise "Tim, go to the sink and get a drink of water.  If you don't, you will die.  Mike, if Tim manages to take one sip of water from the glass, you will die. Ready? Go."

At this point, I should tell you that, not only was Mike 3 times stronger than me, but he was also a former hockey player.  Now I'm scrappy, but there was no chance this skinny underdog was gonna beat the Goliath of a man that was Mike the hockey player, especially since I forgot to take my metabolic steroids that morning.  I tried to run past him, he body checked me.  I attempted to bribe him with money...nothing. And then it happened; in a miraculous moment of opportunity, Mike either gave up or got tired of manhandling me.  I darted for the sink, put a splash of water in the cup, and raised my hand to my mouth, basking in the glory of my victory.  The clouds were parting.  Rays of sunshine were pouring onto my face.  I'm pretty sure a flash mob of the Hallelujah Chorus was in full swing.  Before I knew it, my cup was five feet to my right and I was wet.  Mike had slapped it out of my hand, spraying water everywhere! Clearly, he took this "you will die" thing seriously.  I mean dang.  But, in knocking my cup away, Mike opened my path to the sink again.  I ran.  Mike sprinted.  I reached for the faucet.  Mike, like a frikin gazelle, leapt over my hand and into the sink!  No kidding!  A full-grown man's backside was now wedged in the sink in an attempt to win this life and death struggle.


What happened?  I froze.  I could've turned the water on anyway, dousing Mike from head to toe, and secured my success.  But I didn't.  Why?  Cause I knew in the back of my head that we had another class afterwards and I didn't want to get Mike drenched.  I hesitated.  Mike won.  The scene was over.  I was taken out back and killed.

OK not really.

And that was the day we learned about objectives and obstacles.  Everyone who's attempted to pass an acting class of any merit has heard these vocab words. They're as essential to acting as fries are to a happy meal.  In a scene, each actor must want something specific and fight through obstacles to achieve what they want. These obstacles can come from other people (e.g. Mike) or internally (e.g. apprehension towards getting Mike wet).

The same is true in life.

Now this may seem elementary, but overcoming obstacles requires you to actually have an objective.  Otherwise, you are fighting for nothing and that's a waste of energy.  What do you want?  Make it good.  Make it specific.  Realize that the external world and your internal self will give you plenty of opposition if what you choose is worthwhile.

You want to figure out if this whole God thing is worthwhile?  You want to make it as an artist?  You want to grow spiritually?  Good, that's your objective.  Have more than one objective?  Congratulations, you're human.  Now prioritize them.  Obstacles? How about insecurity, time management, financial troubles, the fact that two million people are fighting for the same job, a strong distrust of anyone claiming the name 'Christian', or the fact that this dude we call God is INVISIBLE for crying out loud? How about that feeling of judgment you get from certain people, that bad experience you had with pastor what's his name, or the people with signs that tell you God hates you?  What about the fact that you aren't sure if you want an objective about God in the first place?  Is that necessary?  Is it life and death?  Slightly less?  Unimportant? How high up on my priorities should the "God thing" be?

Of course, obstacles and objectives are just something for the human mind to consider, right?  Not exactly. The basic premise of the Bible (yikes I said the B word) is this: there is one God and his primary objective is to be in relationship with you on an individual basis.  This may be different than what you've thought, heard, or experienced.  But, God's primary objective is not to teach rules or moral behavior. It's not to impart a how-to or self-improvement project.  His objective is to initiate and foster an active relationship with you individually.  Weird huh?  The obstacles are no doubt jumping out at you: I'm not sure I believe in God period, let alone that he wants to be "in relationship" whatever that means.  I don't trust God.  How can a "good God" allow (insert horrific thing here) to happen?  Why would I want to be like Christians? What's the deal with Jesus?  The bible is confusing and can't be legitimately historical, accurate, or applicable.  Oh yea, and this word "sin" gets thrown around a lot as somehow preventing relationship.  What's that all about? Can't you see, even if only hypothetically, that if God wants a relationship with humans, a couple thousand obstacles stand in the way?

I challenge you to answer these questions: What's your objective with God?  What's your objective as an artist?  Do you have at least one for each?  What are your obstacles?

You see, faith and acting (as well as arts in general as we'll discover) have a lot more in common than what is immediately obvious.  If we're gonna figure out how to, or even if we want to, navigate a life of faith as an artist, we've got to first identify our objective and obstacles.  What happens after that?  How do you overcome your obstacles?  How do you evaluate if you've picked a good objective?

Well, that's something for next time.