Clergyperson as Actor/Actress

  

At University I did one Shakespeare play as well as “Night Must Fall” – a a crime play, in which I acted the part of The Inspector.

The next acting scene was a surprise that came during the first appointment of Methodist ministry. I learned that much of the life work of a clergy person is to be an actor.  That sounds so artificial and distant from people. However, the truth is that when one is in front of an audience of parishioners week after week, part of the task is entertainment.  As in a tavern, there needs to be some reason that brings people back.  I learned to be a presence when terrible things happened to people, and a religious ceremony is needed.  Let me share one story of how my  beginning training school for an acting career taught reality.

The first parish was at International Falls.  Most people were related one way or another to the Paper Mill business.  The congregation I worked with were loggers and service providers. The office people and management types went to a higher class Congregational church or were Catholics, Lutherans or Fundamentalist Christian. 

The hospital was a central place of interchurch dramas.  Pastor W was a hard-nosed Baptist who would use hospital calls on the ill folks to do his missionary work. The sicker the people the more vulnerable they were to his offensive style. If he could get them saved that was victory for him even though they never went to his church. The rest of us had no good way to counter act him because it is a free country.

Methodists were know as welcoming anyone to the love of Jesus, so I was called when the medical staff was uncertain of who to call for an emergency. 

Joan and I lived about 2 blocks from the hospital in a primitive house, typical of many homes in The Falls at that time. Pastoral counseling of drunk people or a homosexual fellow had to be done in the small living room of the house. I admired Joan for managing a household under those circumstances.  I had to sometimes pretend that I knew what I was doing. 

One day a call came from the hospital saying that a member of a church family had been injured out in the woods.  Even me as a new arrival knew what that meant. Working in the woods meant cutting trees down, shaping them into the right length and hauling them by truck to the pulp wood storage area just outside to the east of town by the rail road tracks. I also knew what it meant to deal with “Widow maker trees”. The logger when cutting a tree might not notice that up there another tree might be leaning on the other trees and could fall as a death dealing surprise upon the logger below. 

Leaving home, I braced myself to take on the role of a young pastor whose farm background had not really prepared for the big woods up North.  I was an actor. The curtain had gone up. There was no script. This was no director in the wings to whisper the lines or signal where and what to do.  Life and death in the balances. The Doctor, Nurses and medical staff knew their business.

Upon arriving at the hospital, I was ushered to the vicinity of the room.  As I recall, it was one of the Stillar boys who was in trouble and it did not look good. These were big people especially the men. The room was crowded so I had to push my way in. When the Pastor was called everyone understood that serious things were happening. It made no difference that I was a little stick of a person, a young one at that, new in town as well. 

Once in the room I was in charge. Now to carry off this drama well.  Speak up even though a person knows not what to say. The ancient weight of religious ritual was upon me. Look around at the people with eye contact strong. Say the ancient words of the faith. Act like the pastor and priest, the shaman and medicine man of centuries of tradition.

 Keep the words brief. Allow for silence. Come close to the man who life is ebbing. Identify with him.  “ I commend you in the name Jesus. God the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit.”

“The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” .  

Then the Nurse takes charge. I withdraw from among the Stillars. Sobs. Touching each other. A whispered “Bless you” I leave the room and then the hospital. 

What had just happened? A powerful drama had just taken place. I had been an actor in the Drama of Life and Death. No one is adequate.  The roles are ancient.  Civilized society needs actors to fulfill roles that go back thousands of years.

Delton Krueger      written on 1-5-18