Friday Funnies: Oh, the Drama!

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Pilgrimage: A Book and a Movie

A Trip to the Library Turned my Mind Toward Sacred Pilgrimages

Some time last year, I found a book at our local library’s book sale that looked interesting. Sacred Roads: Adventures from the Pilgrimage Trail, by Nicholas Shrady is the author’s account of walking six different sacred pilgrimage sites. The pilgrimages include a hike to the source of the river Ganges, a trip to Medjugorje at Christmastime, a visit to the birthplace of the Buddha, a walk along the Way of St. James in Spain, and a journey to Rumi’s tomb in Iran. I kept the book on the shelf for many months until I decided that the time had come to read it. I thoroughly enjoyed the read and it was a perfect fit for my nighttime reading.

Sacred Roads is not devotional literature. It is more of a kind of travelogue that is highly respectful of each of the sacred roads the author travels, yet realistic in its accounts. The chapter titles give the reader a quick understanding of where the author is going:

Chapter One: A Christmas with the Virgin in Bosnia

Chapter Two: Meeting Mother Ganges

Chapter Three: In the Footsteps of the Buddha

Chapter Four: The Way of St. James

Chapter Five: A Sometimes Holy Land

Chapter Six: To Rumi’s Tomb

Before I began the book, I was particularly interested in two chapters listed in the table of contents: “In the Footsteps of the Buddha,” and “To Rumi’s Tomb.”  In spite of the personal interests I brought with me to the book, I found that the chapters I enjoyed the most were the one describing the author’s trip down the Ganges (Chapter Two), and the one on The Way of St. James (Chapter Four).

While reading Nicholas Shrady’s account of the temple full of lights at Varanasi, India’s religious capitol, I had to search online for pictures. The same thing happened in my reading about the Way of St. James. I found myself seeking out images of the Cathedral in Leon and the one in Santiago de Compostela where, according to legend, the bones of St. James are interred. 

Every chapter was fascinating. Shrady's accounts of his adventures peaked my interest with each journey. I was enthralled by the trek down the Ganges River, and later I was completely engaged in the pilgrimage through Spain along the Way of St. James. These were unexpected joys, which always makes for a memorable reading encounter.

El Camino de Santiago

I had very little previous knowledge of the Way of St. James (El Camino de Santiago) prior to reading Shrady's book. In addition to seeking out images online, I recalled having read about the movie, The Way, directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father, Martin Sheen along with Estevez. I remembered at the time being interested in this father/son cinematic project. After I finished Shrady’s book, I looked for the movie. I happened to find it online on YouTube. It is a Spanish release, so the credits are in Spanish, but the dialogue is in English.     

The Way, is about a successful American doctor (played by Martin Sheen) who learns that his son (played by Sheen’s real life son, Emilio Estevez) has died in an accident while hiking in the French Pyrenees Mountains on the first leg of the journey along the Way of St. James. 

At the beginning of the movie, we learn through flash backs about the father’s strained relationship with his son. The father, who at first planned only to fly to France in order to bring his son’s body home, decides instead to finish the trip that his son started.

As the movie unfolds, we meet others who are on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. A few of those travelers band together and travel along the pilgrimage route with Martin Sheen’s character. We learn that The Way of St. James has been walked by pilgrims for over a thousand years. We also see some of the reasons that modern day pilgrims make the journey, and we get a glimpse of the local people encountered along the way.    

The Way, like Sacred Roads, is not intended to be devotional and would not be a “religious” movie, per se, though it is set in the context of a religious pilgrimage. It is, however, a spiritual movie in that we see a man begin to open up to what his son must have been about, and begin to see some important things about life that he has walled himself off from in his life as a successful doctor.

I recommend The Way for its beautiful photography, its explanation to viewers about the Way of St. James, and most important, for its engaging story with several underlying plot lines involving the travelers who have come together in their pilgrimage (one reviewer on Amazon.com called it a delightful modern day Canterbury Tales). 

For anyone interested in the idea of religious pilgrimage but not religious propaganda, I can recommend Shrady's book as well as Estevez's movie. Shrady provides us with the fascinating details of pilgrimage in different faith traditions. Estevez shows us the meaningful human drama that takes place when people make connections and open up to themselves and the lives of those around them.

Details:

Sacred Roads: Adventures from the Pilgrimage Trail, by Nicholas Shrady

Hardcover, 268 pages

Published April 1st 1999 by HarperOne

ISBN 0060671122 (ISBN13: 9780060671129)

The Way

PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)

Release date: October 7, 2011 (USA)

Director: Emilio Estevez

Screenplay: Emilio Estevez

Executive producers: Janet Sheen, Julio Fernández

Producers: Emilio Estevez, David Alexanian, Julio Fernández

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The Play Is the Thing

[From my archives ~ a post from my first year of blogging,June of 2010]

There is something about a good drama. Live theater can have a remarkable effect upon members of the audience. The power of drama and its influence was brought home to me recently while watching a film biography of Pope John Paul II. I learned that the young Karol Wojtyla was a member of an underground drama company, the Rhapsodic Theater, in Poland before he began considering the priesthood. His mentor had been encouraging him toward the priesthood when at one point young Wojtyla realized the he could make a positive change in the world by being a priest. Prior to that point he had been assuming that drama would be the way to effect positive change in his world.

Drama During Hard Times

Upon hearing that drama had been Pope John Paul’s first choice for positive change, I tried to imagine what drama must have meant to him and his colleagues living in Poland under Nazi occupation. Immediately I remembered hearing about an acting company in Serajevo during the Bosnian War in Yugoslavia. Even amid the fighting and bombing that completely disrupted that once grand city, the actors were determined to continue, and the people were determined to see that the plays went on. Furthermore, consider Czechoslovakia. When the communist Soviet Bloc fell apart, whom did the Czechoslovakians choose as their first democratically elected president? It was a playwright, Vaclev Havel.

What is it about a play? Why is drama so important? I think that a good play helps us to visualize what life can be like. It is one thing to talk about how things are, or how they could be, but it is another thing to illustrate life with a good drama. For the ancient Greeks, drama was a central act of community religious life. Their plays provided both instruction and catharsis (Now it’s making more sense that a noble young aspiring actor would eventually become Pope).

Widespread Appeal

Drama has a universal appeal. Every culture has its own unique forms of dramatic re-creation. When Black Elk, the Lakota medicine man, was young, he had dream that was a visionary message to his people. As was the shamanic custom among his people, Black Elk staged a play. He called the community together and directed the people in acting out his dream in order to bring the power of the vision into the world. It seems that everyone knows that the play is the thing.

Even today in modern U.S. society, drama plays a vital role. While we have an abundance of live theater, perhaps most people are more familiar with the drama in film and television. We have seen how drama can highlight social concerns and can illustrate our hopes and values. A few years back, it was said of the TV drama West Wing, “This is the President we wish we had.”

The Continuing Role for Drama

I think we can still find instruction and catharsis in our modern drama. There is still that hope that through dramatic illustration, we can make a positive change in the world. There remains the idea that if we act out the vision, we can make it a reality. The medium still works for us today. Unfortunately, whereas in the past drama may have been used to illustrate the tragedy of hubris or misplaced honor, today on our TV sets we often use drama to illustrate the tragedy of carrying cash instead of traveler’s checks.

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Here's to a Legend

There is something quite profound about live drama that can touch you in a way that television and cinema cannot achieve. I must have been around seven years old when I first experienced live theatre. The play was “Our Town”. At that age, I didn’t follow all of the plot line, but I can remember being quite impressed. On top of that, I was able to see the cast members back stage afterward. The reason I was able to mingle with the cast is that my mother was the director of the play, and the production was done by the senior class of Dadeville High School.

My mother, Mary Elizabeth Cook Kinnaird, was a Southern lady of class who believed that if you had Shakespeare, the Bible, and a silver tea service, you were set for life. She had a mission to bring culture wherever she lived. I witnessed firsthand how she sought to bring education, culture, refinement and faith to a small mill town where opportunities could be both limited and limiting. She would have been ninety years old on May 10, but she departed this life during the summer of 2000 at the age of 79.

She did all of those motherly things: kissing skinned knees to make them better, baking cookies, reading bedtime stories, sharing her children’s wonder at a snail on a leaf or a bug in a jar or a bird taking flight. Because she was also a high school English teacher, she had an influence on many other lives as well. My mother saw teaching as her calling and she was always very proud when she saw one of her former high school students doing well in life.

On a couple of occasions I had the privilege of hearing from her former students. Once I was at a gathering, and someone who saw my name asked if I was related to Mary Kinnaird. He then spoke with a kind of hushed pride that she had been his English teacher at Dadeville High School. “I didn't fully grasp when I was 16 the significance of all of those literary works she guided us through," he told me, "but by the time I was 40, I realized how much we really need that wealth of wisdom that is available in literature.” On another occasion, one of my former classmates happened to show up at my place of work. She told my work colleague, “His mother was a legend in our hometown.”

As a teacher, she was also proud of the high school plays she produced. In addition to “Our Town,” I recall seeing such classics as "I Remember Mama," "You Can't Take it With You," “Cheaper by the Dozen,” and "Pygmalion." These plays had appeared on Broadway, and I saw them for the first time at the Dadeville High School auditorium. My mother saw those plays and the many others her students produced as vehicles for her students' talent, and as one more way to give back to the community.

As a woman of faith, she continued in her role as teacher. She was just as comfortable teaching the Bible in her Sunday School class as she was teaching Shakespeare and Mark Twain to her high school students. She loved promoting education and the church. I can't tell you how many prospective students she took to Judson College (her alma mater) in her years as teacher, and there is no telling how many others she encouraged to go on to higher education. When the time came that she could no longer teach, that was a loss that she grieved over.

She certainly left the world a little better than she found it. That is the inspiration and challenge for all of us as we live our lives. She may have been a legend, but she was also my mother. I certainly think lovingly of her whenever I think of homemade cookies, bandaged knees, bugs collected in jars by kids, bedtime stories, literary works, live theater, and any number of other things that make life large and sweet.



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Silver tea service photo by Miki Duisterhoff (Getty Images)


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The Play Is the Thing

There is something about a good drama. Live theater can have a remarkable effect upon members of the audience. The power of drama and its influence was brought home to me recently while watching a film biography of Pope John Paul II. I learned that the young Karol Wojtyla was a member of an underground drama company (called the Rhapsodic Theater) in Poland before he began considering the priesthood. His mentor had been encouraging him toward the priesthood when at one point young Wojtyla realized the he could make a positive change in the world by being a priest. Prior to that point he had been assuming that drama would be the way to effect positive change in his world.

Upon hearing that drama had been Pope John Paul’s first choice for positive change, I tried to imagine what drama must have meant to him and his colleagues living in Poland under Nazi occupation. Immediately I remembered hearing about an acting company in Serajevo during the Bosnian War in Yugoslavia. Even amid the fighting and bombing that completely disrupted that once grand city, the actors were determined to continue, and the people were determined to see that the plays went on. Furthermore, consider Czechoslovakia. When the communist Soviet Bloc fell apart, whom did the Czechoslovakians choose as their first democratically elected president? It was a playwright, Vaclev Havel.

What is it about a play? Why is drama so important? I think that a good play helps us to visualize what life can be like. It is one thing to talk about how things are, or how they could be, but it is another thing to illustrate life with a good drama. For the ancient Greeks, drama was a central act of community religious life. Their plays provided both instruction and catharsis (Now it’s making more sense that a noble young aspiring actor would eventually become Pope).
Drama has a universal appeal. Every culture has its own unique forms of dramatic re-creation. When Black Elk, the Lakota medicine man, was young, he had dream that was a visionary message to his people. As was the shamanic custom among his people, Black Elk staged a play. He called the community together and directed the people in acting out his dream in order to bring the power of the vision into the world. It seems that everyone knows that the play is the thing.

Even today in modern U.S. society, drama plays a vital role. While we have an abundance of live theater, perhaps most people are more familiar with the drama in film and television. We have seen how drama can highlight social concerns and can illustrate our hopes and values. A few years back, it was said of the TV drama West Wing, “This is the President we wish we had.”

I think we can still find instruction and catharsis in our modern drama. There is still that hope that through dramatic illustration, we can make a positive change in the world. There remains the idea that if we act out the vision, we can make it a reality. The medium still works for us today. Unfortunately, whereas in the past drama may have been used to illustrate the tragedy of hubris or misplaced honor, today on our TV sets we often use drama to illustrate the tragedy of carrying cash instead of traveler’s checks.




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