Needless to say, I didn't stop thinking. I started tracing my history with religion and faith, which, of course, starts with my parents.
My mother is Catholic, but I wouldn't say she's an extremist on any grounds. She baptized us and I had a First Communion and I read the Bible (sort of) and she wore her saints around her neck, but she never really forced her children to be Catholic. She took us to church, but when we didn't want to go, she didn't make us, which I think is rather remarkable. I didn't have a bad experience with Catholicism, I mostly just found it boring. And I was never going to memorize all the I Shall and I Shall Not's in order to live my life as a good Catholic, so I pretty much gave up on that at around the age of 10.
My father is not religious at all, but very spiritual. He had a metaphysical magazine for 8 years called Amaluz, meaning Love Light, which was the Brazilian version of the Sedona Journal. He once published some poems of mine in his magazine when I was 13, which was a beautiful gesture and surely influenced my sense of my worth as a writer, as well as poking at my curiosity as to what it was he believed in. Behind his office he has a meditation room, filled with his pyramids and crystals and books on quantum physics. He never once mentioned God to me, but he taught me about meditation. And meditation, for me, brings up an energy that is far beyond my physical self, an energy that connects me to what I call my "soul" and to what I call a "Higher Being".
And then there's the main reason I know there's "something" beyond my human existence: Acting. I felt it the first time I stepped on stage, at the age of ten, to impersonate Nathanial Greene in our Social Studies class. The very shy child that I was known to be transformed instantly and completely into the Revolutionary War General and awed my classmates and teachers. I remember stepping off the stage feeling the most alive I had ever felt, thinking, "Was that me up there?", a question I would continue to ask after every time I performed for years to come.
And the answer I have now (I am aware it will probably change, since I'm still in the beginning of my journey, relatively speaking), is that No, it's not exactly me up there. I am a vessel for a force much higher than myself to express itself. My job is to keep my heart, body, mind, and soul open for this force to shine through me and tell the stories it needs to tell. As a teacher I had in grad school used to say, As an actor we open up our hearts so the people in the audience, in the safety of their dark seats, might open theirs as well. People will go to the theatre or to a movie before they go to therapy, and so in a way, actors are humanity's healers, offering them a glimpse into their own wounds as well as an opportunity to mend them. This explains as well why when I feel like I have failed I take the blame upon myself, whereas when I succeed I attribute it to a higher force. If I "fail"- a term that is difficult to use, since I am not quite sure if it is in fact failure- I believe it is because something in me is closed, and so I have failed at being a vessel for creative expression. When I am open and out of my own way, it all "just happens", my performance "flows". And it is in those moments that a Higher Being, that God, that the Creative Forces of the Universe, are real to me. It is in the space between technique and talent that this untouchable energy exists and I find my faith. I call it, simply, "It", since I cannot find a word that truly encompasses everything "It" means to me. What I know is that I have to have faith in It, nurture It, speak to It, and pray to It, in order to succeed as an performer. My heart won't open if I ignore It, and what I do is simply too important to me- I dare say it's vital for my existence- for me to dishonor It in any way.
Acting is sacred to me, I have rituals and prayers and charms for it, and I really believe it is my mission in this life to be an actor. I don't even like to say I have a "talent", I much rather call it a "gift". I was given this body, this heart, this mind, this soul, this life, so that I can tell the stories and bring to life the characters that humanity needs me to.
So, my faith seems quite clear to me in regards to acting, but it's still rather hazy in daily life. I hesitate to speak directly to God because I attach the deity to religions I do not identify with. And I do not want to attach a gender to my Supreme Being, and God most certainly feels masculine to me. I often end up speaking to The Powers That Be, which also sounds religious, but feels more accurate than God, especially since I do not feel this Energy to be singular.
I think that's how it's supposed to be though. Dictionary.com defines Faith as "Belief that is not based on proof". And so I conclude that part of faith is doubt, and not knowing quite how to define it doesn't mean it's absent from my life. Plus, it's probably healthier to accept the ambiguity of it than to attach myself to certain definitions and thereby limit something that feels so immeasurable. I shall rest my mind now, and let equivocal faith bring its teachings and treasures into my life as it so wishes.
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