theoph@ny

Performance in downtown Boston

2009-04-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

The second performance of the work-in-progress is happening this Monday, 4 May at 7pm -- generously hosted by the Paulist Center on Boston Common. You and your guests are warmly invited to join us!

Their chapel is a beautiful space and offers us a chance to show how adaptable the performance piece is for different physical locations. (There's talk of performances later in the year in Minnesota, Berkeley and Notre Dame too.)

For this performance, the Paulist Center will be following their tradition of asking for a small donation ($5 suggested) and of offering a reception afterwards. Please join us and bring your friends!

(The Paulist Center is located at 5 Park Street in Boston, half a block up towards the State House from the Park Street T stop.)

Clip from first performance

2009-04-07T20:22:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, 60 people braved the first thunderstorm of the season to witness the premiere of this project's polyvocal multimedia performance piece. More on that later, but for now here's a link to a slightly-outsized screen capture of one part of the show.

THREE IMPORTANT NOTES

1) This clip is large (65MB) so it loads very slowly -- don't rush it. Click the big play button, then click pause (bottom left hand corner) so it can load completely.

2) The screen is larger than most browser windows, so you should definitely click on the full-screen icon in the bottom right hand corner for best viewing.

3) The audio quality is low (for now) -- turn your system's volume up and disregard the white noise as you're able!

http://www.screencast.com/t/8s6HwDlqlT

I'll work after finals are over (early May) on getting a better quality clip uploaded. Thanks for your patience!

First TWO performances scheduled! [updated!]

2009-03-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

I'm very excited to invite you all to the first TWO performances of a work in progress: the theoph@ny polyvocal multimedia performance piece.

Here's the blurb I put together for the flyer (click here to see the flyer full size or download it):

What does God want for you?
What do you call God? Why does God love you?
How do you think God is misunderstood?

These are among the 22 questions Zac Willette put in front of 77 people in 10 cities across the country this past summer. You and your guests are invited to hear some of their responses in the premiere of the project's polyvocal multimedia performance theoph@ny — a work in progress whose direction you can influence.

I'd love to see you there!

Friday 3 April at 5:00pm
Boston College School of Theology & Ministry
129 Lake Street Building, Room 024
Light refreshments served
directions here

And just confirmed is the performance in downtown Boston, right off Boston Common

Monday 4 May at 7:00pm
Paulist Center
5 Park Street, Boston MA 02108
(Park Street T stop on the Red, Green and Orange lines)
Suggested donation of $5
Light refreshments served
directions here

Interested in hosting a performance in your neighborhood? Please leave a comment here and I'll be in touch. There's already talk of a performance this summer in Minnesota and next fall in the Bay Area!

Winter 2009 Update

2009-02-21T19:41:00.000-08:00

Nine pages -- that's what a semester will get ya. And if this semester's plans come together, these nine pages will be brought to life (as reader's theatre with some multimedia fandango around it) near the end of March here at Boston College and perhaps at a church in Boston proper as well. Thanks for checking in on this project -- hope to have more for you in the weeks to come!

[Because I choose to believe that such things are interesting to more than just me, the font for this document is Franklin Gothic and I'm considering Museo, Leftist Mono Sans or Gotham for the multimedia components]

Fall 2008 Update

2008-11-21T13:17:00.000-08:00

Seventy-seven interviews do not outline themselves, I've discovered. But what a rich task it is for me. I'm doing an independent study this semester to craft a multimedia polyvocal performance piece from the incredibly generous interviews people gave to this project. Despite my fondest hopes to the contrary, I am unable to crank out both updates to this blog and the draft scripts for the project. So . . . check early in the new year for the remaining photos and a whole heap of text and audio clips. And, eventually, information about the performance piece!

San Antonio [06.19-06.23]

2008-06-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

San Antonio (and Austin) Texas is my last stop for a while. The 45 interviews I've completed so far have been true privileges, but it's time for a break. I'll be in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guilin China for a little under a month . . .

. . . then back to the upper midwest (mostly my beloved homeland of Minnesota) and very-much back to uploading text and audio clips. Thanks for your patience — there's great stuff coming from the wise and brave souls I've interviewed!

[text and audio clips to come . . . ]

Tucson [06.16-06-19]

2008-06-19T01:56:00.000-07:00

[text clips and audio clips to come . . . ]

Los Angeles [06.13-06.15]

2008-06-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

Angel, 17, Catholic, student, strong independent Latino in a gang- and violence-filled society

A lot of people just look at me and see my baggy pants and think "Oh there's just another hoodlum" or whatever, and not know that I'm religious.

But I'm religious because I just love God.

Sally, old-enough-to-know-better and too-old-to-care, liturgical Anglo-Catholic, financial advisor, unpaid conservator and church administrator, frenzied

What people need to hear is yes that God loves them but also that he has expectations of them. Social engineering and secular messages will not save their eternal soul.

San Francisco [06.08-06.12]

2008-06-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

Grace, 22, Catholic Christian, middle school teacher

I felt like if I breathed, God would know exactly what was in each little particle. And that was a big change from growing up and thinking that God was making me scrupulous and I was never as good or as Christian as I should be.

¶

To be without hope is to be without God. To be without community is to be without God. Could be community found in nature, could be community found in people.

¶

I’m so tired but at the same time I’m starting to see things as gifts, and that’s good.

Sarah, 34, Christian Science/Jewish, writer, woman, mom, wife

My concept of God, which was a God who loved us and made things ok for human beings, just doesn’t hold water anymore. I feel like after [my sister in law] Katherine died I was like, “I’ve been denying all these people all these bad things that are happening to them, you know?" It’s so unfair to deny all these people their experiences just because I want to believe that everything’s OK. It’s just not OK -- things are not OK, you know? They might be OK on a cosmic level, or a divine level, but I’m not divine, I’m a human being and they’re not OK. All over the world way worse things are happening and I’ve been trying to find a way to rationalize them. Now I do not believe in a loving God -- which is a really painful place to be in. ... What I hope for is an experience to be able to still love a God that I don’t believe is loving.

Background on Interviews

2008-06-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

Here's the basic information I give to all my interviewees explaining who in the world I am and what in the world I'm doing.

Thank you in advance for your participation in this project. My name is Zac Willette and I’m interested in people’s experiences of God — however they understand God. I’m planning to listen to stories from people of many different faith traditions, and from no faith tradition at all. Any story you choose to tell me is a story I hold sacred.

PURPOSE

My guess is that God shows up in everybody’s life in a way that is custom-made for each of us — using our individual experiences, hopes, fears, joys, sorrows . . . even our biases and blind spots. (Who better than God to know what catches our attention and what makes sense to us — but also what puzzles or angers us, what gets us to slow down and what gets us up on our feet.) Hearing about how God has done — and is doing — that in your life is both fascinating and encouraging to me. I’m recording and sharing these interviews because my guess is that they could fascinate and encourage other folks as well — opening us all up to how God is revealing Godself in big and little ways all the time.

LOGISTICS

I expect these interviews to run anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, but I’m open to whatever fits your schedule. I have prepared questions, but you choose which ones you answer, in any order that makes sense to you. We might talk about 1 question or 12 — it’s up to you. You don't need to prepare at all, but some people prefer to think about questions ahead of time — so here are four basic ones: What has God been like for you in your life? What is God like for you now? What do you hope God is like for you in the future? Are they any stories that illustrate these? (If you’d prefer to have all the questions ahead of time, please let me know and I’ll be happy to share them.) At the end of our interview, I will take a photograph with the page of questions but you decide if it’s a photograph of your face, your hands, or your empty chair.

BACKGROUND

This interview is about you and God, not me — but it may help to know a little more about where I’m coming from. I grew up in a large Catholic family in beautiful downtown Blue Earth Minnesota, a farm town dangerously close to the Iowa border. I’ve lived in Tennessee (where I studied elementary education), Arizona (where I taught kindergarten and high school), Washington DC (where I worked with people who are homeless), Minnesota again (where I helped direct education policy), Antarctica (where I was happily cold doing carpentry and driving trucks at a research station) and Bolivia (where I taught English at a university in the cloud forests). I’m now studying for a Master’s Degree in theology in Boston. I love mom & pop restaurants and can’t stand TV commercials.

This adventure is made possible by a Ministry Fellowship from the Fund for Theological Education, a national non-profit organization that helps people throughout the Christian community explore and respond to God's calling in their lives. Though I’m not restricting the form or shape just yet, I am committed to editing and sharing these stories in a multimedia fashion. You can keep tabs on the project by visiting [this blog] Also, you can contact me directly by e-mailing [my e-address] or calling [my number] — thanks and God bless!

Chicago [06.01-06.03]

2008-06-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Asha, Hindu retired chemist, mother of two beautiful children and grandmother of two lovely girls, 64

Whether it is a Hindu god, a Christian God or a Muslim God, it is the same — just as we are all under the same sky.

[text and audio clips to come]

Montréal [05.28-05.30]

2008-05-30T17:55:00.000-07:00

Two big shifts happened here in Montréal Canada: I slowed down from the break-neck speed of the interviews in Boston, DC and NYC and I sorted out the technology to be able to record interviews over the web.

Claude, Catholic priest, 73

We say what we will, but we scream what we are.

[audio clips to come]

New York City [05.25-05.27]

2008-05-27T20:51:00.001-07:00

Elijah, Jewish, Zoë’s big brother & Daniella’s future husband, 5 1/2

God tells me ‘Don’t eat candy every day. Eat vegetables as much as you can.’ Because he wants me to be healthy. But he lets me have candy some times. He lets me pick candy, whatever candy I want.

[audio clips to come]

Washington DC [05.22–05.24]

2008-05-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

It turns out photos are a lot quicker to edit and post than audio is. I've done 24 interviews — each of them striking in their own way — and look forward to sharing some clips soon. Here are the faces and hands of my Washington DC interviewees. Enjoy.

[ . . . text and audio clips to come . . . ]

Boston [05.18-05.21]

2008-05-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

Seven brave souls were my first interviews. Here are their self-selected images (face, hands, empty chair) with our questions. And following are a few text and audio highlights from two of the interviews — more to come in time!

Ed, Jesuit priest, 66

Oftentimes I say to myself “where am I going and what am I doing?” and I find later on that’s really of service to others. If I trust my graces I can help people with their graces.

¶

It leads to a kind of being in love with God that didn’t go through a falling in love with God stage. . . . It’s a quiet being in love with God, living with God, living out of God, asking myself how does what I’m doing affect my relationship with God — all of those are crucial to it, but God and I don’t make mad passionate love very often.

¶

All the ways that people misunderstand God are frequently just inadequate ways of understanding God, so I don’t want to take it away from people. As a priest I would never say “Oh, God is not like that” because there’s always some part of the truth in what people have believed.

¶

The supreme quality is that God is able to be related to everything at all times in every way.

¶

I think I can say that — subject to the next time God wants to give me different graces I’ll have to change my mind again.

[audio clips to come]

Jane, lawyer studying pastoral ministry, 42

God has actually made me laugh a lot — [especially] at the times that are the lowest.

¶

So I went for this walk and I just had a this argument with God, like “You’re driving me crazy!”

¶

God is the source of all love. That’s the most simple way that I can explain God . . . . Wherever there’s love, there’s God.

[audio clips to come]

6,485 Miles — more or less

2008-05-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

My journey starts this Wednesday, but the preparation and fretting are well underway. The friendly people at Amtrak (with help from the unfriendly ones on occasion) confirmed my Rail Pass and scheduling, complete with 3 luxurious-to-me sleeping berths along the way. Here's what Google Maps makes of the route: (click for a little more detail)

I'll post a more detailed itinerary in time -- but I welcome suggestions and prayers now!

Background

2008-04-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

About a year ago I found out I'd been awarded an FTE Ministry Fellowship. It's a humbling honor — and quite generous. And it centers around a summer project.

Ideas for the project have not been hard to come by. Plans, even, have assembled themselves and clamored for my attention. I’ve greeted them coolly, shown them to their assigned corner of my imagination, and waited for them take root or take flight or neither.

It was during one of these waiting periods that my sister-in-law started the conversation that ended the cool receptions. “You Willettes are always going on about calls — this person feels called to that, God seems to be calling me to such-and-such. I’ve never said that and don’t honestly have any idea what it means!”

Forty-five minutes later we came to a natural collective pause. We’d all told — each of us, including my sister-in-law — stories of God at work. We’d all laughed and cried and marveled at the movement of God in our lives, together and apart. “I read book after book about God,” I said, “but I’m just now realizing that I don’t know the stories of how God shows up in the lives of the people I care most about.”

Every human soul is a letter in the name of God. That’s how the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah puts it. It’s not that each of us is a little part of God — we’re part of God’s name. So to know what and how to call God, it helps to know a lot of souls. That’s why I want to spend my summer interviewing people for their stories about God.

As a follower of Christ, I’m interested in how God reveals Godself in big and little ways to each of us, every day. As a believer that God is too big for any one religion, I want to hear the stories of how those around me came to know — put succinctly — that God is and God cares. The labels they put on God are just that: labels. What I feel drawn to is the experience people have of God showing up — bidden or unbidden, welcome or unwelcome, effable or ineffable. In my own life, I know God challenges and consoles, stirs up hungers and lays out sustenance. What does that look like in the lives of my relatives and friends — and of complete strangers? Does God custom-make a pedagogy of love for them too? Are they as surly a student as I am?