Waiting for God(ot)

I had the great priviledge yesterday of being given a free ticket (which is another story itself) to see the play Waiting for Godot at the Sydney Opera House, with one of my favorite British actors, Sir Ian McKellan. And although his is not a household name, he has an utterly recognizable face and demeanor, playing such character parts as the head master in the Harry Potter series, one of the main characters in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and soon to be in the re-make of a British drama The Prisoner.

It is not he as a person that I wish to speak of today, rather his performance at the Opera House and the play in which he not only brought off the page to life, but brought the audience (along with the other actors) into the transcendent, into the eternal of all that is. What I mean by all those lofty words is that through his art, through his playing of a character he stepped out of the way of his own personality and ego to allow the words of another artist (Samuel Beckett) to ring through to the truth as the writer saw it.

And what exactly is this truth that Sir McKellan brought to us, via Mr. Beckett's words? The message was two fold I believe: that there is an absurdity to life, the everyday, mundane existence that we all experience and then a more complicated and perhaps veiled and elevated message. This latter is that in the absurdity and being aware of it, we may come to a place, come to experience a peace, a place of calm simply in the surrendering to the Unknown. Surrendering to this character named Godot. Or some may call the Mystery, the Divine.

Now these concepts are hardly novel, however, to have the sum of the parts (writing, acting, and delivery) create something more powerful than a message is a life altering and enriching experience. One I feel blessed to have been apart of.

The use of silence as the vehicle to communicate, which Beckett did with his minimalist writing, and then to have the actors exquisitely deliver the rhythm and cadence of this silence allowing the audience to open up and simply experience the power of The Mystery, of the Unknown and The Unknowable, was as close to a Spiritual experience that I've ever had in a temple.

I was not only in the presence of greatness with these actors, they communicated and channeled through their art to the audience The Presence of Greatness.

Now how wonderful is that on a day out in Sydney!

After the play I walked along Circular Quay to The Rocks thinking to myself how many people actually are aware of the Mystery as they go through their mundane, day to day? And how many move into this Mystery on a moment to moment basis when they feel inner resistance? Inner conflict or struggle?

Where are you with being aware of, acknowledging, understanding then experiencing this Presence? This Mystery? This unknowable power? How often do we simply get stuck in the confusion and conflict of the mundane, waiting, instead of taking intentional action from a centredness and knowingness that comes to us from the silence and inner stillness?