S3 Ep2 Faith

Network Sting: MSW Media

Martin: Hello, and welcome to the third season of The Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen, of course. And I’m delighted to be back hosting this podcast pilgrimage where the destination is still and always will be the journey itself. Along the way, I plan to share stories and personal memories of some of the many people, places and events that have helped to shape my lifelong happy and continuing struggle as an artist and a man to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh. I also hope to explore poetry as a powerful form of expression and communication by proxy, as it were, and how poetry is such a vital and necessary component of our spirituality and our public discourse. And from time to time, I’ll invite friends, fellow actors, poets, scholars and family members to join our pilgrimage and discuss what inspires their artistic journey. And so, friends, let us continue.

Martin: Baptism & Birth, In That Order.

One of the more challenging periods of my young Life began in July 1962, while we lived in the Bronx, New York. Emilio was born in May of that year, and I was unemployed since December of the previous year. With a new baby, expenses piled up and when the rent came due for July, I was not able to come up with it and we were promptly evicted. It was our third eviction since Jan and I had been together, but the first with a baby. And unfortunately, it would not be our last. Mind you, I believe in suffering for one’s art, but sometimes suffering for one’s art is just plain suffering. Period.

I was in a desperate situation, and like the prodigal son, I thought of my father. It had been two and a half years since I saw him, but under the circumstances, I felt I had to conjure up a positive scenario as I planned our visit to Dayton. Surely my father would be delighted to meet Janet, his new daughter in law. And of course, he would welcome with joy his newest grandson, Emilio. In reality, I was deeply humiliated, with nowhere else to turn. I didn’t even know how we were going to get to Ohio. As luck would have it, Dick O’Reilly and Jerry Gellotti, two very dear friends I’d grown up with in Dayton, just happened to be in New York as tourists, and they came up to the Bronx to visit us. When they learned of our situation, they invited us to join them on the return to Dayton, and we gladly accepted.

The following day, Janet and I packed everything we could fit into our suitcases and left everything else behind at 203rd Street in Mosholu Park. Then we crammed into the back seat of Jerry’s Corvette with Emilio and drove the 600 miles through the night to Dayton, arriving mid-morning on a very hot and humid day. But the weather was not the only uncomfortable part of our stay with the family on Brown Street that summer. Besides my father, there were five of my siblings still living in that three-bedroom house, so everyone had to be shifted around to accommodate Janet, Emilio and I. And while my father was welcoming and sympathetic, he confided privately to Janet that he was deeply concerned about my future as an unemployed actor. Needless to say, he was not the only one.

Meanwhile, I made contact with Cal Mayne, the owner of the Dorothy Lane Supermarket in Dayton and the sole sponsor of the Rising Generation, the TV talent show that had helped launch my budding career in 1958. I met with him privately and appealed for his help by way of a personal loan, and to my great relief and gratitude, he granted it. It was enough to get me back to New York, find an affordable apartment and bring Janet and Emilio back. In a word, Cal Maine was a lifesaver and I revere him to this day.

A week later I returned to New York while Janet and Emilio waited for me to find a new place for us to live there. Manhattan was too expensive, New Jersey was too far, and Brooklyn was still a mystery. Was Staten Island a possibility? A 5-cent fare on the Staten Island Ferry and the 20 minute crossing of New York harbor was the only way to find out. I stayed at an inexpensive motel in midtown Manhattan for several weeks while I combed the real estate section of the Staten Island Advocate nearly every day. The trip itself was comfortable and refreshing, and the more I made the journey from South Ferry in Lower Manhattan to St. George Staten Island, the more I enjoyed it and the more I grew confident that Staten Island would be our new home. And it became so when I finally landed an affordable one-bedroom corner apartment on the six floor of an art deco building at 30 Daniel Low Terrace, a 15-minute uphill walk from the ferry landing. “Another actor lived in this building years ago” the superintendent told me, “you should be as lucky.” “Who was he?” I asked. “Paul Newman,” he said with pride. It seems Paul Newman rented a furnished room in the basement for $60 a month when he was starting out in the theater. He was long gone, of course, by the time I arrived, but I could only hope he left some of his stardust behind.

In September, Janet and Emilio returned to New York and we settled into our new digs. On the first night of our reunion, I led them out to the fire escape. If you angled out far enough and looked North, you could see the Statue of Liberty and just beyond her, the buildings of Ellis Island, where my mother had landed from Ireland 41 years earlier. It was a form of welcome. And for the next two years, this apartment on the top floor of this building, with that view, would be unforgettable and life changing. A few days later, I began looking for a job locally and found one at the Bay Street Car Wash, just a 20-minute walk from home. It was minimum wage with tips, but it kept us afloat for the next six months until I started working again as an actor.

Meanwhile, since his birth, I had always intended to have Emilio baptized. But with the Bronx eviction, our retreat to Ohio, and our relocation back to New York, it seemed we were never in one place long enough to plan it. But now that we were settled in Staten Island, I felt I could no longer put it off. And one day, by chance, I met a young couple in our building who offered to help me organize the Baptismal ceremony. It seemed they knew of an Eastern Rite Catholic Church in Staten Island where the ceremony could be performed. I didn’t know much about the Eastern Catholic Rite other than they were loyal to the Pope and the priests were permitted to marry, but I gladly agreed to give it a try. So my new friends, Gary and Melinda, contacted the church and made the arrangements for the following Sunday afternoon.

I showed up with Emilio and joined them in the priest’s home office, but Janet chose not to attend. The idea that Emilio was born tarnished with original sin and needed to be cleansed to ensure his salvation was something she neither agreed with nor wanted to devote a Sunday afternoon to. Raised among Southern Baptists, she didn’t have much interest in organized religion as an adult. Mind you, she was a deeply compassionate, bright, loving and honest person with a highly calibrated radar for hypocrisy. And she quickly zeroed in on mine when I told her about the baptism and pleaded with her to participate with me. “Oh, all of a sudden you’re a Catholic,” she said. “Where the hell were you all last year when we were living together in sin?” She struck a nerve, of course, since I had not been, a practicing Catholic since we met. Nevertheless, the thought of not baptizing my own child was totally inconceivable. Gary and Melinda were a young married couple, actors like me who couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan. Melinda was Catholic, and I asked her to be Emilio’s godmother while Gary stood in for my dear friend John Crane, who was my best man at our wedding. He had agreed to be Emilio’s godfather as well, but unfortunately he was not available that day.

“What is the baby’s name?” The priest asked. He was a very kind middle-aged man with a thick accent. Russian, Greek, or maybe Armenian? I never thought to ask. “Emilio Diogenes Estevez” I responded. “Can you spell that, please?” he asked. “Yes, I said. “Emilio. E, M, M, I, L, I, O.” Then I paused for him to write the first name down on the baptismal certificate, and I went on, “Diogenes,” I said with less confidence “Ah, Di,” I stammered, and started again “D, E.” Again I paused before I said, “Ah, D,I,E” which I felt I would surely do any minute. Janet and I agreed that Diogenes was such a beautiful middle name for Emilio. But it was not until that awkward moment that I realized I did not know how to spell it. In my embarrassment, I glanced around the room, and when I saw a picture of St. Dominic on the wall, I made a quick recovery. “I mean Dominic” I said with a nervous laugh “D O, M, M.” But the priest cut me off. “Ah, yes, Dominique, he said with a smile. Then he wrote it on the certificate with a flourish. Once the certificate was completed and we all signed it, the priest donned an elaborate white cape and led us inside the church. “Who will speak for this child?” He asked. “I will,” said. Then he went on, “Do you renounce Satan and all his works, his false promises and his pride?” “I do,” I said. “And do you accept for this child Christ, who is the light of the world?” “I do,” I said. He then blessed Emilio with the sign of the cross, and together he and I recited the Apostles Creed. Afterwards he handed me a Baptismal candle. Then he lit the brass incense censer and swung it to and fro as he led us up the center aisle, chanting a beautiful hymn while the sweet-smelling smoke drifted around us. When we reached the baptismal font near the main altar, he motioned for the baby. Then I watched as he lifted Emilio up, then lowered him down into the water. Once for the Father, once for the Son, and once more for the Holy Spirit. Emilio came up the third time, sputtering and blinking, but he never cried. And after we dried him, the priest anointed his eyes, ears, mouth, hands and his feet with holy oil. That done, he instructed us to carry Emilio and follow him single file around the font three times while he chanted another beautiful hymn. Then finally, he snipped off three small locks of Emilio’s hair and the ceremony was complete. It was sacred and beautiful, familiar and brand new to me all at the same time. And while I feared Emilio probably was not going to be raised Catholic, at least he had this magnificent blessing to start his life.

Throughout the winter and spring of 1962 and 63, our lives on Staten island began to form a routine when we discovered Janet was pregnant again, with our second child due in July or early August. Meanwhile, I continued working at the car wash on Bay Street six hours a day, five days a week, Though I would take off every once in a while to go into Manhattan and make the rounds, looking for an agent and auditioning for plays and TV work.

Janet had become a strong advocate of natural childbirth, and she decided to have the baby delivered at home with the assistance of a professional midwife. I agreed, and we made the arrangements and left it at that.

However, when she started having contractions early on the morning of August 7th, we discovered the midwife had to cancel due to a family illness, and we could not find a replacement. At the last moment, I called for an ambulance, but the baby was coming so fast we were left to it on our own. It probably goes without saying that birthing a baby is a bloody, painful and messy business, but I didn’t even know the half of it. The fact is, I had never actually seen a baby born before, nor did I have any training in what to expect. And when the moment came, I was terrified, and if not for a far greater fear, of leaving Janet to cope alone, I somehow saw it through, and it became a defining moment in our lives.

The delivery became very complicated when the baby got stuck in the birth canal and Janet started hemorrhaging. At that critical moment, something otherworldly, or perhaps better described as animal instinct, took over, and I became possessed. I started barking orders like a madman and positioning myself in front of Janet on my knees as I cupped my hands together, then placed them on her upper abdomen, then pulled down hard with each contraction to try and help force the baby down and out. To my surprise and great relief, it worked when the baby flew out into my arms and I carefully handed him to Janet, who started breastfeeding him immediately. But we were only halfway home. Or so I thought, because as we were still waiting for the ambulance, a second baby started to crown. “Janet,” I yelled, getting back into position “There’s another one coming!” “No, no, you idiot,” she laughed “That’s the placenta.”

Soon enough, the medics arrived and cut the umbilical cord while I woke Emilio and took him to stay with a neighbor down the hall. I returned to join Janet and the baby with the medics who transported us to the hospital where, despite his chaotic entry into the world, our son Ramon was declared a healthy nine-pound baby boy.

Sadly, another baby born that day was not. As I left the hospital that afternoon, the late editions of the New York papers were just hitting the stands. Extra, extra. The vendor on the corner shouted. Jackie has a boy. Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. The President’s second son was born five weeks premature with a respiratory syndrome that made him unable to breathe on his own. Two days later, he passed away. The President and the first lady had access to the best medical care available at the time, yet tragically, they lost their cherished second child, while our second child survived a life and death struggle of an emergency birth at the hands of two totally unprepared parents. And though these events are recalled from a distance of 63 years, I am still gripped by the profound mysteries that touched our lives so deeply on August 7, 1963.

Martin: Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.

Martin: And we’re back.

Martin: Consider this by Henry David Thoreau “There is a season for everything. You must live in the present. Launch yourself on every wave. Find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look to another land. There is no other land. There is no other life but this.”

Martin: The following is a selection from the book Blessed Among Us by Robert Ellsberg. The book is filled with daily reflections that explore the lives of saints as well as ordinary men and women with extraordinary stories of courage and spiritual awakening. Mary Lou Williams, composer and jazz musician. Born in Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 1910 and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mary Lou Williams taught herself to play piano at the age of three. By six, she was helping support her 10 siblings by performing at parties. At 15, she began her professional career traveling the country with a jazz band. She became one of the great jazz musicians and composers of her time, working with and mentoring musicians like Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, while recording scores of albums. And yet, after a two-year stint in England and Paris, she walked away from music and embarked on a spiritual quest resulting in her reception into the Catholic Church. Living an aesthetic life in Harlem, New York, she devoted herself primarily to aiding fellow musicians suffering from alcohol and heroin addiction. A Jesuit priest named Father James Wood was among those who encouraged her to return to music, persuading her that this was her way to serve the world and glorify God. Williams went on to compose numerous liturgical pieces, including her Jazz Mass that she performed in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. She also composed pieces that honored the African American freedom struggle. Her music was influenced by her deep spirituality, “I am praying through my fingers when I play,” she said. “I get that good soul sound and try to touch people’s spirits.” Williams is the subject of a documentary on her life and work called “Music on My Mind,” narrated by Roberta Flack. She was also an artist in residence at Duke University when she passed away on May 28, 1981, in Durham, North Carolina. Mary Lou Williams was 71 years old. Her quote “From Suffering came the Negro spirituals, Songs of Joy and Songs of Sorrow. Because of the deeply religious background of the African American, he was able to mix this strong influence with rhythms that reached deep enough into the inner self to give expression to outcries of sincere joy, which became known as jazz.”

Robert Ellsberg is an American publisher specializing in religious and spiritual exploration. He is editor in chief and publisher of Orbis Books. He lives and works in upstate New York with his wife.

Martin: I invite you to delve further into the works of the poets I shared with you, and I hope you seek out writers and poets whose work speaks to your hearts and minds with the power to inspire your life. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard here, please subscribe to my podcast, The Martin Sheen Podcast, with your host, yours truly, Martin Sheen. Of course, wherever you find your podcasts. Yeah, I still have to say that. You can find a complete list of the poets and titles of their poems that I’ve chosen at our website, themartensheenpodcast.com

I want to thank the people who make this podcast possible. Our producer and research assistant, Renee Estevez, whose explanation of the Internet really gets me thinking… What’s for lunch? And our sound engineer and editor, Bruce Greenspan, the man behind these rich and seamless recordings with the much deserved nickname the Sound Surgeon. And I especially want to thank you, our listeners, for joining me.

And so, friends, we part with the prayer from Tagore.

Where the heart is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead

habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—

into that heaven of freedom (my Father) let our country awake. Amen

Renee: The Martin Sheen Podcast all rights reserved. No part of this podcast may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written consent of the author and TE Productions.

The story “Baptism & Birth, In That Order” by Ramon Gerard Estevez, AKA Martin Sheen, is included here by copyright permission of the author.

“Blessed Among Us: Mary Lou Williams” by Robert Ellsberg is included in this podcast with granted copyright permission of the author, who we thank for this opportunity to share his work.