The following are excerpts from the short play, Coming Through the Rye, by William Saroyan. I dedicate it to the conflict in the middle east. I dedicate it to america. I dedicate it to iraq. Oh, what the heck, I dedicate it to this world.


The Voice: O.K., people. Your time has come. You are now going to enter the world. You'll find it a strange place. There are no instructions. You know your destiny now, but the moment you are in the world, breathing, you shall forget it. You can thank God for that, let me tell you. Good things, and bad, are ahead for each of you. The world is still new, and the idea of sending you out there for a visit has not yet proved itself to be a good one. It may in time, though. Your destination is America. It's an interesting place. No better and no worse than any other place, except of course superficially, which the Americans make a good deal of, one way or the other. . . . Everything you do, you shall imagine is your own doing. You can thank God for that, too. You shall live as long as you shall. No more. You will find noise and confusion everywhere, even in your sleep. Sometimes in sleep, however, you shall almost, but not quite, return to this place. Nothing in the world is important. Nothing is unimportant. Many things shall seem important. Many shall seem unimportant. In a moment you shall begin to be human. You have waited here nine months of the world's time. From now on you shall be alone in body, apparently cut off from everything. You shall also seem to be alone in spirit. That, however, is an illusion. . . .


The next passage is a conversation between two individuals waiting to be born -- Butch, age nine, and Mr. Carrol is in his 70s. Both are the age they will be at their deaths.


Butch: Miss Quickly -- she told Steve it wasn't fair.


Carroll: What wasn't?


Butch: My father dying before I'm born and my mother being poor, and dying a year later. She says I may have to go to an institution. What the heck's an institution?


Carroll: That's an orphanage, I guess. Now, listen, Butch, don't you go worrying about anything. Everything's wonderful out there.


Butch: What are you going to be out there, Mr. Carroll?


Carroll: Well, let's see. It says here, Thomas Carroll. Mother: Amy Wallace Carroll. Father: Jonathan Carroll. Will be, at birth: son, brother, nephew, cousin, grandson, and so on.


Butch: Brother?


Carroll: Yes. I guess I've got a sister or a brother out there, maybe a couple of sisters and a couple of brothers.


Butch: I thought we were all brothers. I thought everybody was related to everybody else.


Carroll: Oh, yes, of course, but this kind of brotherhood is closer. Whoever my brother is, he has my father and mother for his father and mother.


Butch: Well, what the heck's the difference? I thought we were all the same.


Carroll: Oh, we are, really, but in the world there are families. They're still all really one family, but in the world the family is broken down to the people you come from, and the people that come from you. It gets pretty complicated.


Butch: But everybody is one family just the same, though, ain't they?


Carroll: Well, yes, but in the world everybody forgets that for a while.

Annoying!! Without a doubt. There's a school in the northeast where the parents and administrators are terribly annoying. Truly. The school is not important to name, because they represent so many schools right here in America. I can get so frustrated by the hate disguised as some religious piety disguised as godly love. These people make a mockery out of life itself. They are vermin. These people are always worried about their image, without ever truly worrying about what their children need! And they wonder why their children do not confide in them?! Pathetic! And what's even more frustrating -- the way they approach me, as if I will not see through their weak intellect, their disguised hate.

I feel badly for the liaisons who bring me in and are caught in between this mess. The chatter goes something like this: "Could you not include your gay football player . . . because . . . umm . . . some parents are concerned that you might be promoting homosexuality." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!??!?!?!??!?!??!! Promoting homosexuality by mentioning it? What does that mean? Am I to assume that because I have a character who is East Indian and Korean that I am promoting East Indian and Korean people to "get together."

Why are we so afraid? It makes me so sad. So many adults can't do anything genuinely and therefore hide behind masks of religion and politics, and teach millions of children how to be afraid. I pray never to be a parent like these chattering fools on so many boards of education (HA!) and PTAs across this country. I don't really care for them very much -- not the board of education or PTAs, in general, but just these festering viruses that make my job that much harder.

Oh, here's the latest . . . there's a school district in Monmouth County, New Jersey -- will not mention their name (but it is NOT Freehold Twp., Freehold Boro, Manalapan, Colts Neck, or Howell) -- who's had me perform successfully in their schools for years. However, this year they will not be having me back because I refuse to purchase an additional insurance policy (would cost me roughly $3000/year) that will cover me an extra $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 for them in case of a lawsuit due to damages when I'm at the school. No offense, but my show does not explode or cause any bodily harm to students. This business office is so obsessed with worries of being sued that they have now emotionally jeopardized their students for the sake of unreasonably protecting their financial interests. I refused to even look into a possible purchase of additional insurance. I don't need them. I feel sad for the students of this school district; sad because the business office is just a mere reflection of the larger adult community. Pitiful!

"Not me, I think I'm gonna stick around. I've just got to find out how this movie ends."

Randy Stonehill, "Weight of the Sky"

A student approached me the other day asking me why society condemns suicide when life itself is meaningless. Interesting question. I wasn't able to give him a well-structured response at the time, but it is a question of spectacular fascination to me. Why live?

The premise that life is meaningless is certainly a thesis that has been pondered throughout time. I mentioned the Biblical book Ecclesiastes in my last entry. The speaker in that text starts off by saying, "Meaningless! Meaningless! All is meaningless." And I can agree with this stance. Life at times makes me laugh. We toil and toil, but for what? Why do we do what we do? Why do we take our jobs and lives so seriously? It all feels like a chattering in the wind, at times, with no sense, no reason. Yet, we continue this dance in great hope of finding some profound understanding. Why not suicide? Why not end the misery now? Why do I continue to choose life?

For me, perhaps it's as simple as solving a mathematical equation or the Rubik's cube. There is a thrill in unlocking the meaninglessness, the confusion; finding a solution within the chaos, (and please forgive me, my liberal compatriots), discovering the intelligent design(s) (minus the mumbling of fools who abuse its true application, school boards notwithstanding). Life is pointless, if we fail to frequently seek out meaning. We create our reality. Suicide is an individualistic choice. Like it or not, it is a reality, a meaning. It may be the meaning of this life for some. To be or not be; to live or not live. I know this sounds controversial, but allow me to explain.

Suicide is not just the actual killing of one's physical existence. For many, suicide involves the killing off of pieces of oneself. There are many forms of suicide and some are more noble than others. The suicide I try to prevent within individuals is the suicide of defeat, of giving up, because darkness is visible. However, purpose driven suicides are of another matter. The suicides of Alfred Nobel, Mahatma Gandhi, Sojourner Truth, Jesus Christ are nobel suicides. I can hear it now -- "Whoa! Wait a minute! These people did not commit suicide. That's blasphemy!" But did not all these people commit an act of suicide for the greater good?

Take Alfred Nobel who in 1888 read a mistaken obituary about his death. It was in a French newspaper and they were condemning his invention of dynamite. Upon reading this obituary, he put to death his old life and started a new one, one in which he created the Nobel Peace Prize, an award given to those individuals or groups who "render the greatest service to the cause of international brother/sisterhood, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses." He killed off his former self. Once he found his meaning, suicide was the solution to the old self.

Jesus Christ's life was a suicide mission. In Biblical texts he spoke about sacrificing his own life so that others might live and know God. Gandhi chose not to live like the wealthy of his country; he sacrificed that part of himself and saw the true extent of poverty upon the human condition. Instead of being a lawyer, he gave voice to the oppressed in his country. He used peace as his weapon, destroying that part of himself that was filled with hate and revenge.

Sojourner Truth, a black woman, a freed slave, took no comfort in her freedom. She sacrificed that freedom to speak against slavery and the inequities of women.
These forms of suicide, I commend, not condemn. These are the suicides of meaning, of discovering purpose.

But the young man in the school was not asking about these suicides. Why do we condemn the suicide of the child who shoots himself in the head; the mother who lays down on the track awaiting the train; the girl who takes 52 pills of aspirin, then goes to sleep; the grandfather, ravaged with cancer, who requests to be assisted in dying. Why do we condemn these forms of suicides? Some people feel it is a coward's way out. Others feel it is an unpardonable sin. And still, others just feel it is wrong. For me it is grey. Why I wouldn't do it may not be an adequate enough response for others. I have found meaning in my life. I know my desire to help people, to heal. This brings meaning for me, but my meaning is my meaning. Do I feel more impressed with the individual who lives 80 years and dies miserable, lonely, and bitter, leaving a lifelong path of meanness and brutality, but dies by natural causes, than I do with the individual who lives only 30 years, lonely, bitter, and miserable and one day hangs himself? Do I really feel the 80 years were more significant? No. Not at all.

I think most of us live outside our destiny. Our job, therefore, is to find our destiny. I am saddened by those who give up too soon without ever trying to find this purpose. It may be a job; it may be a commitment; it may be family; it may be a cause; it may be a passion. But I have to believe it is there for all of us, the meaning. Many of us never find, yet we continue to go on without this discovery. Is this more noble? I don't know . . . and the chattering of the wind, doesn't say, but I just got to find out how this movie ends.

Running Away From Dick Clark

A friend of mine, who I will call M, told me a story about a night she had out in town with some male "friends." Unfortunately, these males were anything, but true friends. Most of them were married, and throughout the night almost every one of them had sexually propositioned her in one way or another. The most devastating interaction took place by the guy who she felt safest being around. M has a close relationship with his wife, and he is good friends with one of her former boyfriends. He had presented himself as a rescuer -- an ally who would help her get home safely. However, in the end, he was the individual who was the most violating. When M shared this story with some of her students in a peer leadership class one girl was upset by the story; she felt as if my friend ruined her idealism. This girl was more upset at my friend sharing the story than she was by the story itself. She was bothered by the fact that M had tainted her sacred belief in men.

When my daughter was born there was great expectation that I would fall hopelessly goo goo over her. This did not happen. In fact, I would dare say that I was rather cautious and neutral in regards to my feeling about my daughter. I wasn't worried that I would love her, but the idea that newborns are the "best" or that the early stages are the greatest time of an individual's life seemed like a fictitious idea. The drone of friends and strangers informing me how wonderful newborns are: "You don't get any sleep [wink, wink], but it's all worth it, right?" I was intensely vocal about my disagreement with most people's assessment. I didn't hold back, and because of this -- my love for my daughter was subtly and overtly called into question.

On New Year's Eve, I was at a small party that two of my dearest friends were hosting. At about 11:30pm, the television was turned on and we began to watch Dick Clark's New Year celebration. I was only vaguely aware that Dick Clark had had a stroke earlier that year. And though the stroke left him somewhat physically disfigured, he was still given a limited role in the New Year celebration. When he spoke his speech was garbled, making it difficult to comprehend at times. His voice was not the Dick Clark that everyone had known. There were a number of groans from the guests at the party, questioning why a network would allow him to be on in the condition he was in. Some of the guests were irritated by his presence during such a festive time. For me, his presence, along with the other two stories, got me thinking . . .

Why is it that too often we shy away from the complete picture? We hold innocence to be the supreme form of knowledge; we love the taste of the apple, yet we clothe our nakedness. We want to support war (or support our troops, if you're super wonderfully naively innocent), yet we are repulsed by the body bags; we want nothing to do with the images of American blood being spilled, and to a fuller degree, we shy away from the blood of Iraqi women and children. We run away from Dick Clark. And we are still running, because he reminds us of our mortality, and in entering a new year we are foolishly celebrating our immortality. We want nothing to do with people who lack giddiness over newborns, especially parents who question all of this goo-goo ecstasy. Don't tell us that we might be shot, raped, robbed, tortured, forgotten. We want to fall in love with Prince Charming or some "really hot chick," not wanting to see the slob behind the prince, the wanderlust of ms. hot-chick. We want make-believe, not reality, but "in a land of make believe, [they] don't believe in me." Face it, "in a perfect world, we'd all sing in tune, but this is reality, so give me some room."

I want to understand life in all its complexity, the love and heartbreak, birth and runny bowels, celebration and mourning. I think there was once a wise man, responsible for writing the book of Ecclesiastes [Hebrew word: Qoheleth] who stated something about there being a time for everything: a time to weep, a time to laugh; a time to mourn, a time to dance. These moments are integrated within our experience of life. Failing to acknowledge one without the other is an insult to the Artist and to life itself. And as C.S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, upon losing his young wife to cancer, eventually concluded: "The pain now is part of the happiness then."