News from the Front #3 or "Why I Want to Stay."

This last week I went out with a few of the other graduate students. As we tend to do at this point in our life, we got to talking about our plans when we were done with our graduate degree. My hope and dream for the past few years has been to start/develop a true academic theater program at an Adventist College. I think its despicable that out of all of our universities, we do not have ONE theater program that goes beyond a minor.

As we talked I had to explain many of the politics about the Adventist Church, Adventist Education, and Adventism in general. After I finished, my friend Penny asked me a question, "Why do you want to stay? Why do you want to go back? Don't you want to just go someplace else where you wouldn't have to deal with any of that?"

I thought about it for a moment and then replied. "No."

See, the answer is really "Yes." I would love to just be able to go someplace else. To go to a school where the community is sportive, the music department would want to put on a musical with the theater department, and there was hundreds of students who want to be involved in the program would be great. That would be nice. It would be easy. But I can't. I just can't. It's that simple. I cannot bring myself to take the easy route in life. It's like the novel the Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles. As you go through life you can choose to be a tourist or a traveler. The tourist takes the easy way through life, preferring to be where it is comfortable for him and seeing the world from his air conditioned hotel room. The traveler takes the harder route, but in the end has a better experience. Being a traveler is not easy, making that decision is difficult. But it's worth it.

Maybe its my stubborn German side coming out. I cannot run from the difficulty. That would be cowardly. To run and take the easy road simply because there might be some bumps on the other road is the life of the coward. Of the Tourist. I cannot and I will not.

And besides, I kind of enjoy the struggle sometimes. Out of the struggle comes passion, and therefore passionate art. The work created with passion is always the best work. In the end, it is worth it. I can appreciate it more because of the struggle it took to get to that point. For example, on Saturday afternoon I was at a church potluck out here. A older gentleman asked me what I was doing out here in VA going to school so far from my family. I told him theater. He asked what i wanted to do with it. I told him teach and build a program within Adventism and practically got laughed at. He told me that having a program was not needed, and these students who want to go into theater would be far better served going into some other major and using that knowledge to build their theater. Although I agree it is good to know other areas and to bring that knowledge to your art, you must first learn about the form of theater. It would be like giving somebody an empty music composition book and telling them to fill it, when they were trained in English literature. It might help them, but without the music theory they would be unable to truly apply it and their art would be hampered.

That is what I want to provide Adventist students. That is what I feel I need to give them. I need to give them the opportunity to learn this form. Better yet the opportunity to express themselves in this form. That is the most important thing. I have seen students drop out of PUC or struggle through it in a different major because they wanted to do Theater, but were unable to because there wasn't an academic level program. I'm sure this doesn't only happen at PUC. It must be the case at La Sierra, and Walla Walla. Let's give these artists the opportunity to learn how to do theater, and learn how to do it well.

That is why I want to stay. That is why I cannot run.

Constructed Masculinity and Gender Violence

From an early age, boys are fitted with emotional straight-jackets tailored by a restricted code of behavior that falsely defines masculinity. In the context of “stop crying,” “stop those emotions,” and “don’t be a sissy,” we define what it means to “Be a Man!” Adherence to this “boy code” leaves many men dissociated from their feelings and incapable of accessing, naming, sharing, or accepting many of their emotions. When men don’t understand their own emotions it becomes impossible to understand the feelings of another. This creates an “empathy-deficit disorder” that is foundational to America’s epidemic of bullying, dating abuse and gender violence. Boys are taught to be tough, independent, distrusting of other males, and at all cost to avoid anything considered feminine for fear of being associated with women. This leads many men to renounce their common humanity with women so as to experience an emotional disconnect from them. Women often become objects, used to either validate masculine insecurity or satisfy physical needs. When the validation and satisfaction ends, or is infused with anger, control or alcohol, gender violence is often the result.

- Joe Ehrmann, former NFL player, from “Men Can Stop Rape”



This could not be more true today. We have our genders constructed for us from birth. However in the postmodern cosmopolitan world we find ourselves with the ability to construct and preform our own genders daily. To take control of our lives and not resort to the expectations of how a "man" or a "woman" is supposed to act. The key reason we need to destroy these stereotype constructs is that they, " lead many men to renounce their common humanity with women as to experience an emotional disconnect from them. Women often become objects used to either validate masculine insecurity or satisfy physical needs. When the validation ends, or is infused with anger, control or alcohol, gender violence is often the result."

Powerful stuff.