Yesterday morning I rose early as I do nearly every Sunday morning as I prepared to head to church and lead in a series of morning worship services. It has become a part of my Sunday morning pattern to listen to Krista Tippet’s ‘On Being’ radio show as I get ready. I feel as if she, and whomever is her particular guest that morning, are my companions for preparing my heart and mind for all that the morning will hold. It is a centering experience for me. Her quiet voice and gentle rhythmic questions pulling wisdom from a well chosen guest become the backdrop for my day.
Yesterday morning’s guest was Mary Catherine Bateson the author of Composing a Life, a book I read long ago, and now know I want to pull out and read again. Bateson is the daughter of anthropologist Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. A quick internet search could render several quotes of this author and student of humanity. But it was one sentence she spoke when describing the millennial generation that grabbed me: “Many feel they are on stage without a script.” This is one of her observations about this group of young people raised in the shadow of 9/11 and those that we have such hopes for in our world. 

This was an image, a metaphor, that so connected with me. Since my early career was spent in the theater world, for years I had the recurring dream of finding myself on stage, in a play, but I did not know what script was being performed. It was a vivid dream, one in which my behaviors varied as did the other players on the stage. Sometimes in the dream I froze and tried to stay in the background, be a part of ‘the chorus’ rather than at the center of the action. Other times I simply went with the flow, observed, tried to listen well enough to see if I had ever known the story, the lines, being played out. No matter the way in which I played ‘my part’ I almost always awoke with a sense of anxiety.

All day yesterday I thought about Bateson’s statement:”Many feel they are on stage without a script.” I thought of this generation upon whom we have heaped such a great deal of hope and whose behaviors seem to confound so many. I thought of my own two sons who fall into this group. I wondered if, to a degree, each generation has always felt this way. I also thought about how each season of our lives brings a certain quality of being onstage without a script.

What I remembered from those dreams was that the times when anxiety did not rule supreme were the times when I employed some of the gifts of improvisation….an acting style that is often script-less or minimally so. The guiding principles for this kind of acting are….be in the moment, in the present moment…..listen well…..say ‘yes’ to the other actors by responding to the story they are offering. To do so keeps the actors engaged in the eventual outcome of where the story leads.

I am thankful for yesterday’s early wake up and this sentence that has captured my imagination. It was good to remember those dreams, the feelings they conjured and the gifts they brought.

Mary Catherine Bateson also said: “Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.” In the scripts we are invited to act each and every day, this is great wisdom. Is this a place that is leading to someplace else? If this a place to rest and remain for awhile? Is this a place to abandon altogether? 

Perhaps someone you know is on the stage without a script searching for what their role is in the unfolding story. Perhaps you are that person. May you find the wisdom to be fully present. May the gift of deep listening be yours. May you find an authentic ‘yes’ someplace within that allows your story to further unfold in the world. 

It is a story that is needed. Of that, I am sure.