S3 Ep Go In Peace

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: Transition

In February 1981, while Emilio and I were in Bombay, India, and I had nearly completed my role in Gandhi, I received an overseas call from my agent, Dolores Robinson in Los Angeles, concerning a film called Enigma. They’re going to film it in Paris, she said. Are you interested? Of course, I replied. When can I read the script? The overseas connection was poor to begin with, but before I could get any more information, the line went dead. And despite the hotel operators’ heroic efforts to reconnect it, the line remained unresponsive and was officially declared dead. Oh, well, I thought, I hope it can wait. And I left it at that. Nearly a week later, with my work completed, Emilio and I were preparing to leave for the airport when the phone rang again. This time it was an urgent call from my agent in Los Angeles. I’ve been trying to reach you for days, she said. Have you finished filming yet? Yes, I replied, and we’re on our way home today. Oh, dear, she said.  Could you possibly rearrange your flight and go to Paris? Paris? For what? I asked. Remember last week we talked about a movie for you that was going to film in Paris? Yeah, but we got cut off, I reminded her. I know, I know, she said, but somehow you had agreed to do it, and they’re expecting you in Paris tomorrow. I was astonished to say the least. But I told you I was interested, not committed, I said, and I haven’t even read the script. They sent the script to your hotel in Bombay last week, she assured me. Well, I didn’t get it. But hang on for a second. With that, I asked Emilio to go down to the front desk and ask about a script from Paris. Meanwhile, I learned that somehow I had agreed to what is called a deal memo, which is legally binding when an actor verbally consents to appear in a film before a legal document can be drawn up for a signature. But I could not understand for the life of me how it was possible I was expected to honor a commitment of I didn’t even know I’d made. Soon enough, the mystery was solved when Emilio returned with a script. It was called Enigma, written by none other than Jack Briley, the very same Jack Briley who wrote the script for Gandhi. And gradually the pieces began to fall into place. I had spent a good deal of time talking with Jack on the set of Gandhi about a good many things, and chief among them was his next project, which I was holding in my hands. I guess our conversation was considered a deal memo, or as close to one as you could get. Nonetheless, Paris can wait, I told my agent. I’m going home. And I did, but not for long. After I explained the situation to my wife, Janet, we agreed I should do the film. It was a leading role and a good script with top billing as well as a good salary. Of course, it was out of the question to take any of the kids with me on such short notice, so I didn’t ask. But I did get a promise that everyone would join me during their Easter break in April. And within a few days I was in Paris on my own. Set in Berlin during the Cold War, Enigma was a cat and mouse spy caper involving an East German defector recruited by the CIA to steal a computer scrambler from the KGB. I played the defector, and my costars were the wonderful actor Sam Neill as the KGB agent assigned to track me, and the beautiful French actress and former child star Brigitte Forsey played my accomplice. Locations were all in France, including Lille and Strasbourg, as well as Paris, where the majority of scenes would be filmed. The production company had temporarily booked me into a very swanky hotel, Royal Monceau on the Avenue Hoche, while they searched around Paris for a less expensive place for the long haul. Sam was staying at the Hotel Lennix in the Saint Germain des Prix neighborhood on the Left Bank. One night he invited me over for dinner, and afterwards he showed me his suite on the top floor. It was a very unique duplex with a small sitting room and a balcony overlooking the street, with a cozy bedroom upstairs under a skylight. This is wonderful, I said. I wish I had a place like this. It’s yours, he said. Oh, no, no, I couldn’t, I told him, but he insisted I take it for the remainder of the shoot, and he moved out. I was deeply moved by his generosity, and at his insistence, I checked in the following day, and that unique space became a very special retreat. Every morning I’d wake up early to the light coming through the skylight, called downstairs for a, cappuccino, a fresh croissant, and the day’s edition of the International Herald Tribune. After long days filming in different locations all over Paris, I could always look forward to a quiet evening in my retreat, working on the script or reading a few of the books I had brought back with me from India. One of the books, by the way, was a Western interpretation of India culture and spirituality that explored the Eastern concept of death. The author believed that we wake up in death as if awakening from a dream in a strange place, very disoriented. But eventually we remember who we are and that we have left the physical plane and entered a spiritual one. Of course, there was nothing about what happens next, but if waking up is the first step in the afterlife, I found it reassuring. Naturally, no one ever returns to confirm what really happens when we croak, so I’ll just have to wait and see. I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, my time in Paris was becoming a pleasant routine of filming on weekdays, with quiet evenings in my rooftop sanctuary at the Hotel Lenox. And while the weather was not always ideal, in fact it was cold and it rained quite a lot, still, I enjoyed long walks on weekends, exploring historic Left bank neighborhoods, discovering museums, shops, restaurants, and generally absorbing the Parisian ambiance. One day, I was astonished when, out of the blue, I ran into my dear friend Terrence Malick on the street. We had grown close since working together on Badlands in 1972 but had not seen each other for several years. Meanwhile, he had moved to Paris, remarried, and he and his wife, Michelle, lived on, the Rue Jacob near my hotel. It was wonderful to see him again and spend time together. Terry was a Harvard graduate and a Rhodes Scholar with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He was a brilliant film director as well, who spoke four languages, including French. I couldn’t mention a book he hadn’t read, and a conversation with him was often like a tutorial for me. Despite a great sense of humor, Terry was enormously private and extremely shy. Soon I began to open up to him about what had happened in the Philippines during the stressful filming of Apocalypse now and the profound experiences Emilio and I had in India. Terry introduced me to the famous English language bookstore Shakespeare Co. along the river Seine, where he would pluck books off the shelves for me to read. He taught me how to navigate the Paris subway system as well, and he took me on long walking tours of the Ile St. Louis and the Ile de France. He and Michel often invited me to join them for dinner at their favorite restaurants, where a tourist was rarely seen and wonderful French meals were served at reasonable prices. Several times I joined them at night in the Church of the Saint Germain des Pres, the oldest church in Paris, where a group of charismatic musicians held impromptu concerts by candlelight. They were young men and women who played guitars and sang beautiful French hymns in a corner of the cathedral as we sat listening for long periods of time in rapture. And it remains one of my favorite memories from my time in Paris. The more time we spent together, the more Terry realized I was going through a transition, and without either of us acknowledging it as such, he had become a spiritual director. Then one day he gave me a copy of Dostoevsky’s the Brothers Karamazov. Read this, he said, I think it will have an effect on you. And did it ever. I’d never read any of Dostoevsky’s novels before, but from the start, his story of the ethical and moral dilemmas faced by Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his sons fascinated me. Every character in the story was invested with an equal measure of faith and flaw. But the overriding, powerful theme of the book was love. Not the sweet, genteel image of love that’s often tossed around in Western culture, full of sentiment and lust. For Dostoevsky, love is a terribly painful and vulnerable endeavor that requires total honesty and heroic selflessness. Such love is valuable above all else and devoutly to be wished. The book was nearly a thousand pages, and I stayed up late reading it. Night after night I carried it with me to film locations and read whenever I had a break. Often I would reread a paragraph or sometimes even a whole chapter, as I did with the Grand Inquisitor chapter, which I reread several times. Clearly I was studying the book and it was having a tremendous effect on me. I finished the book just before the Enigma production company moved locations to Strasbourg for 10 days and spring arrived with my family from the States on Easter break. It was a wonderful, though all too brief, reunion, and I returned to Paris and my cherished retreat at the Hotel Lenox for the final weeks of filming. The entire Enigma experience, the work, the cast and crew, and even Paris itself, was extremely satisfying, but my focus was rapidly shifting, thanks in large measure to Terence Malick and the Brothers Karamazov. How often the road we choose to avoid the truth is the one that leads us to it. On March 5, 1977, something urgent had awakened deep within while I was working in the Philippines on Apocalypse now, but it laid dormant since. Four years later, that urgent something reawakened in Paris and could no longer be ignored. Friday, May 1 was a national holiday in France, similar to Labor Day in the US. I woke up early beneath the skylight on that beautiful day, and somehow I knew this is it. Today is the day. St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, near the Arc de Triomphe on the Avenue Hoch, is a parish run by the passionate order of priests from Ireland serving English speaking Catholics in Paris. In fact, it is the only English-speaking Catholic church in all of France. The first week I was in Paris, before I moved to the Hotel Lenox, I stopped there occasionally for mass or to light a candle touching the edges of Catholicism, but not quite ready to step back in. Friday, May 1 I walked the three miles from the Lenox to St. Joseph’s as a form of pilgrimage and arrived around noon. With solemn purpose I pulled on the doors, but they were locked. Then I knocked and waited. No answer. Then I banged on them with urgency. Still no answer. Then I banged again, much harder, and waited. Still there was no answer. Well, I thought, maybe today is not the day after all, since it was a holiday. So I turned around and walked back down the steps. But just as I hit the sidewalk, I heard the door swing open behind me. I turned around and looked up and there he was, the Irish priest I’d seen on my occasional visits. There he was, holding a napkin in one hand and still chewing. Obviously I had interrupted his lunch. Yes, what is it? What’s going on? He asked. He must have thought there was a riot outside from the way I’d been banging on the door. Well, Father, I said, I’m sorry to bother you, but I haven’t been to confession in years and I’d like to return to the church. His eyes narrowed, and from his expression I knew I’d come to the right place and he was the right man. Well, he said, come back here tomorrow morning at 10 and don’t be late. I’ve a wedding at noon. I will, I said. It was the right day after all. The next morning, I arrived at the church promptly at 10am and father was waiting. There was just he and I, and when the time came I entered the confessional box, knelt down and began with those seven words known the world over, Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Then I, unburdened a heavy load from my soul. Father listened patiently, offered some spiritual advice, and then he said, for your penance, say one Our Father. One Our Father? I asked. Have you been gone so long you can’t remember the Our Father? Oh, no, I laughed. I remember it. It’s just I didn’t expect such a light penance after being gone so long. Welcome home, he said. Now make a good act of contrition. I did so, and he gave me absolution and said, go in peace and God bless you. Thank you, Father, I said. I left the confessional light as a feather and sat down in a pew to reflect. I had returned from whence I’d come. And gradually an overwhelming sense of freedom and gratitude consumed my whole being. Sitting alone in that church, I began to weep uncontrollably with tears of sheer joy. I imagine the prodigal son must have felt the same way when, as the gospel parable tells us, he returned home from his wayward path, rehearsing lines of apology and explanation, only to be greeted by a father who loved him so unconditionally, the son was welcomed with open arms, no questions asked, and no judgment passed. I don’t know how long I sat sobbing in that pew, but eventually I needed to blow my nose. I felt around in my pockets for something, anything, but came up empty. Then I saw a crumpled Kleenex on the floor nearby, which seemed to suggest that all my needs would be met if I stayed the course I’d just begun. During my absence from the church Vatican II was begun under Pope John XXIII in 1962, and some extraordinary fundamental changes occurred. Church dogma and canon law remained intact and but gone was the Latin Mass and many of the fear-based traditions of hellfire and damnation. Gone too were the many ancient barriers that separated Catholicism from other faiths and traditions. I was now in a revitalized and more modern church that embraced the world with understanding, compassion, service, and above all, love. And that became the conduit through which I directed my spiritual journey. And found at last a way to unite the will of the Spirit with the work of the flesh. The last 45 years have been the most difficult by far and equally the happiest.

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

Martin: And we’re back.

Martin: Consider This phrase attributed to the Buddha.

If you want to fly, give up everything that weighs you down.

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.

Fyodor Dostoevsky. Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian novelist, studied engineering before deciding to pursue a literary career. His first story, Poor People, was published in 1846, and it reflected his lifelong concern for the sufferings of common people. In 1849, Dostoevsky was arrested for his role in a socialist study circle. Sentenced to death, he was actually reprieved within minutes of his scheduled execution. He spent the next four years in hard labor in a Siberian prison camp, an experience that provided him with much material for his later work. Through this ordeal, with only the New Testament as his companion, he found the themes that would dominate his novels, the common human solidarity in the sin of the world, the redemptive meaning of suffering, and the power of Christ’s love. Dostoevsky’s life was marked by deep anguish. He suffered from epileptic seizures, and his compulsive gambling contributed to his lifelong poverty. Two of his children died and he was racked with guilt over the early death of his first wife, whom he had neglected. His brilliant novels, Crime and Punishment, the Idiot and the Brothers Karamazov, were marked by an acute understanding of psychology and an obsession with the nature of evil, the condition of human rebellion against God and the quest for salvation. Though his work was honored in the Soviet era for its realism, he had prophesied the oppressive nature of any effort to achieve utopia apart from God. For Dostoevsky, authentic community and human fellowship could be founded only on a living faith in Christ. He died on January 28, 1881. Fyodor Dostoevsky with six years old. His quote, the world will be saved by beauty.

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 podcast. 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.

We are called to lift up this nation and all its people to that place with a 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 depths of truth and 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, dear 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. T

The story “Transition” by Ramon Gerard Estevez, AKA Martin Sheen, is included here by copyright permission of the author.

Blessed Among Us: Dostoevsky 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.