Decisions, Crisis, and Will
This past Friday I taught some playwriting classes for Taproot Theatre's Church Drama Conference. I enjoyed the preparation for the classes mostly because I learned some things, and in fact, had a bit of an "ah-ha" moment as I thought about the relationship between what we call the "crisis" and the "climax" in story structure. My epiphany may or may not "hold water" as they say, but it has opened a new place in my spirit, a place that seems to offer some hope.
It makes me think of Yoda's "Try? There is no try. There is only do or not do." (Or something like that.) Robert Mckee, in his book Story, implies that crisis is the most important moment of the story structure. For me, that's a new thought. I've always thought of the climax as being the most important, and indeed, it is usually the most memorable, being the place where the battle is either won or lost for good. But McKee asserts that the action of the climax is a mere (well...not mere) working out of what has been decided at the moment of crisis when the protagonist faces a choice that is a true dilemma. And it is in this moment--not the moment of climax--that character is revealed, and it is this moment that will require the greatest strength of will.
What went off in my head when I put this together was simply this: I reflected on all the major decisions of my life and was surprised to discover that there weren't that many. Some I made in my childhood. For those, I can't really point to a particular moment in time when the choice was made. But I know that deep, near-irrevocable choices were made back then, and I can clearly conjure the events that brought those decisions about. But the others, the decisions of adulthood, these almost all have a particular moment attached to them, when I had to reach down and once and for all, decide. And whatever pain came with the decision, it simply was what it was. Because the choice had been made.
I take a couple of thoughts from this. First, we decide whether we consciously choose or not. As is often said, no choice is a choice. Another way to say it, and it's brutal, is that looking at my life, I am looking at the sum total of my truest decisions, the decisions that are in fact the basis of my current condition. Secondly, to decide is both transforming and shattering. The only sure path to breaking patterns, habits, prisons, or any number of other bugaboos in our lives is to drop down into ourselves and with the help of God, family, friends, and anybody else who'll stand in our corner...decide. Those decisions are where we are tested, where we must bring the full weight of all we are to bear. These decisions are where--just as in story--the true character is revealed. And most often, they don't happen without deep crisis.
Lent is approaching, and I'm tempted to bail on the whole thing this year. My fast days have been virtually non-existent in recent months, and I don't want to fail in my Lenten experience. But then I think back, and I know the freedom of deciding to take a course of action, knowing that it will be difficult, but also knowing that the difficulty is beside the point and somewhat irrelevant. The doors to other paths are shut, the ships have been burned, and there is no path the one we have chosen.
Commitment, I suppose, is the word.
My pastor once told me, and he was right, that I was afraid of commitment. I wonder if that's a word he ends up giving to a lot of people.
Lent. I have another week to decide.
"...grace is most often experienced as power..." John Ortberg...
8:34:45 PM 
