The Actor’s Vow

I’ve recently read something that I think beautifully expresses some aspects of wholeness or whatever it is we mean when we refer to conscious, intentional human beings. It is a quote from Elia Kazan, titled “The Actor’s Vow”

I will take my rightful place on stage
and I will be myself.
I am not a cosmic orphan.
I have no reason to be timid.
I will respond as I feel;
awkwardly, vulgarly,
but respond.

I will have my throat open,
I will have my heart open,
I will be vulnerable.
I may have anything or everything
the world has to offer, but the thing
I need most, and want most,
is to be myself.

I will admit rejection, admit pain,
admit frustration, admit even pettiness,
admit shame, admit outrage,
admit anything and everything
that happens to me.

The best and most human parts of
me are those I have inhabited
and hidden from the world.
I will work on it.
I will raise my voice.
I will be heard.

You see, he sees that he has a place, his own place, his own rightful place on stage from which he will be himself. He has a place-the hearth to return to-so he is not an orphan (any more). No longer constrained by his fears of what others will think, or fear of his own failure or stupidness, he will simply respond as he feels. Think of that.

I could go on, but why bother leading others to see it my way? See this your way, but consider it and let me know what you think, what it makes you feel (if anything). I think it’s a very good expression of awareness of and responsibility for one’s own self.

Goodbye, Children

About six years ago, my husband felt he wanted to adopt another child. I was against it, as I have said “no more children” several times before and then relented, stretching our family size to umpteen, a perilous number. I think we are getting too old to flirt with disaster any more and I am trying to learn to color inside the lines. So I said “no.” In fact, I think I may have even said, “heck, no!”

My husband, love of my life for almost 30 years now, countered, “Will you think about it? Will you pray about it?” I agreed, knowing that nothing would change my mind, not even God.

Some time later, November and National Adoption Month rolled around. The Dave Thomas Foundation sent us some materials in the mail promoting the adoption of waiting children. Two posters were in the package, one of them with the photograph of a little boy grinning widely, showing that he’d lost his first tooth. It said something to the effect of, “You didn’t see my first smile, and you didn’t see my first steps; but there are many other firsts we could share.” Having adopted several older children (even teens), I knew this was true. It’s not about what you get to be to the child, or how many firsts you get to experience, because it’s not about you (the parent). It’s about the child’s need for parents, family and home when he has lost his, and about the many rich blessings of family. I felt my heart melt a little. But I didn’t change my mind.

Later that day, I was working outside and saw our sons pushing their younger sister along in their rusty old wagon. She was screaming and all were careening to certain disaster or death across our back pasture, headed for the creek. Their faces were splitting with laughter and joy, and suddenly I saw again what adopting kids who needed parents had done for all of us: it had given us these particular children, whose faces were full of joy and the glee of belonging somewhere.

I told my husband later that I was willing to adopt one more time, as long as the child was older than our youngest. Due to our daughter’s death, we had an age gap between children that a waiting child, most particularly a boy, might be happy to fill. So we looked around for what sorts of children needed parents the most desperately worldwide, and we settled on the African nation of Sierra Leone, where civil war had nearly destroyed the country and where there are orphans aplenty.

Many thousands of dollars and much paperwork later, we were referred one little boy. A true orphan, he had been living from family to family in his village. His father had been killed in the civil war; his mother had died of a brain disease. We agreed to adopt him. Then, about three weeks later, the agency contacted us to let us know that he had a half sister, also an orphan, who had been helping to care for him. Would we adopt her, too? She was almost a teenager. I said no. There is no way. I’m sorry, but no.

My husband agreed with a shrug of the shoulders. “I understand, sweetie,” he said. “Just do me a favor.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Call the social worker back and explain to her what you want her to say to this girl as her baby brother boards the airplane and he waves goodbye to his only living relative. Explain that in our huge house on 10 acres, with our money in the bank and with a successful business, how we don’t have room for one more child or the ability to raise her. Tell the social worker exactly what to say to this young girl about why adopting her would cramp our vacation style or cause us to have to buy one more $900 curriculum or maybe five more school uniforms at $100 apiece, and how that would be just too much money to have to pay to give her a home and family. Just call the social worker and explain that, ok babe?”

My husband, such a wonder.

This is how we ended up agreeing to adopt two children from Sierra Leone, Africa, six years ago.

Five years ago, adoptive parents working with Sierra Leone started having problems in the adoption courts. Some justices and consular officials stopped believing in adoption. They believed that white people only wanted their children for slavery or for house work. They refused to believe that anything we said or did was actually about the children’s welfare. Rumors that white people wanted the organs of these black children shut down adoptions for awhile. And, then, a justice on the bench said that no African child should ever leave Africa, even if they were orphans. They had already lost their parents and whole families; why force them to leave their own culture, too? So adoptions ended. Even missionaries living in Sierra Leone and committed to staying there until their children were raised were denied adoptions. As children’s homes, orphanages, villages and city streets filled with urchins and waifs, the judges said adoption was bad, and would not occur any more in the poorest country in the world.