S4 Ep 4 Life Lessons

Network Sting: MSW Media

Martin: Hello and welcome to the fourth 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: “Looking Back Within”

From time to time, I am drawn to revisit two very special group photos from my childhood and preteen years.

One is my first communion class photo with 28 graders, 16 girls and 12 boys, all in white, posing on the steps in front of the main altar of Holy Trinity, our parish church, in May 1948.

Our pastor Father Moremen stands to the right with our assistant pastor Father Lawler on our left.

The other photo is my 8th grade graduation class of 23, with 10 girls and 13 boys posing on the front steps of Holy Trinity, our Parish School in May 1953. There are no adults in the photo.

Holy Trinity Church was built in 1861 and remains a landmark at the corner a 5th St. and Bainbridge in Dayton, OH. The rectory sits between the church and the school. A 2-story red brick structure, the school, that was built in 1913, and it had two separate playgrounds on either side.

The sisters of Notre Dame were responsible for the school and they lived in the convent directly across the street.

There were a dozen or so nuns in residence there when, in early September 1946, my brother Conrad, who was one of my 4 older brothers in classes ahead of me at the time, took me by the hand and delivered me to the first-grade classroom of a small, elderly nun named Sister Mary Stanislaus. He told me to stay there, behave myself and pay attention and that he would come back to take me home at 3:00, which he did. He didn’t tell me I had to go back every day. I figured that out on my own soon enough.

The classrooms of the 1st grade through the 4th grade we’re next to each other in numerical order on the first floor just as the 5th grade through 8th grade classrooms were on the second floor and there was no kindergarten.

Each classroom had a separate “cloakroom” at the rear and a crucifix fixed above the blackboard front and center. There were six large windows in every classroom that opened from the bottom and the top and they were always left open when the weather was pleasant. Every desk was affixed to the wooden floor and each one had its own book space and inkwell. Clearly penmanship was an important part of the curriculum.

The corridors of each floor were wide and joined at either end by equally wide staircases that ran from the second floor to the basement. And each corridor featured separate boys’ and girls’ lavatories. The school principal’s office was on the 2nd floor between a broom closet and a storage room for school supplies.

There was a beautiful shrine of the Blessed Mother in the first-floor corridor where the entire student body would gather to celebrate Marian Feast Days, usually in October and May, with joyful hymns and prayers of intersession. There was a shrine to the Infant of Prague, the Patron of Holy Childhood on the second floor as well and his feast day was celebrated in December.

The basement ran the length and width of the entire school building with very little natural light. It contained the kitchen and cafeteria, the auditorium with a stage, where I made my theatrical debut in the 7th grade, by the way. There were separate boys’ and girls’ lavatories, a boiler room, a utility room containing mops and pails, brooms and dust pans, and all manner of cleaning agents and a tool room next to the office of the school janitor, Mr. Elkins, whom I assumed lived down there as well.

He was already an old man or so he seemed to all us youngsters and though none of us would admit it then we were all deathly afraid of him. Mind you, he was not threatening, it was his presence alone that was so frightening and unpredictable.

He was short and very heavy set with a large nose, small eyes that were always hidden behind a pair of thick horn-rimmed bifocals, he had a ruddy complexion and he seldom shaved. He wore the same overalls every day with a long sleeve yellow stained shirt, black steel toed boots and an old worn-out fedora. I never saw him without that hat so I didn’t know what color his hair was or even if he had any left but, all that aside, it was impossible to understand anything he said. He may have been German or Polish or even Italian or he could have been born and raised in Dayton for all we knew. A typical sighting would find him moping around in the shadows, like an old troll, mumbling incoherently about only god-knows-what and we learned to move away quickly whenever we heard him coming because everyone agreed he was best left alone and we assumed he was fine with that too.

Then one day, while I was alone in one of the bathroom stalls, just off the boys’ playground, during the lunch period recess, I heard him come in pushing that large, old noisy water pail on wheels with the mops inside. I held my breath and prayed he’d leave before he knew I in was there but no such luck. Then I knew he was just getting started when I heard the wet mop land heavily on the tile floor and he began to push and pull it to and fro.

I was in for it now. There was no way I could slip out of the stall and out the door without him seeing me. Then I thought, I’ll just sit tight and wait for someone else to come in and distract him and then maybe I can crawl away under the stalls to the exit without being noticed. Then I started to realize it was awful quiet out on the playground. Oh no, the lunch period recess must be over and everyone’s back in class! Ah geez, how long have I been in here? Long enough, I suppose for Mr. Elkins to assume the boy’s lavatory was empty and he could mop it down without being disturbed.

Well, I thought, I can’t stay in here much longer without being AWOL from class so I might as well face the music. And then, as if on cue, I heard the humming of a familiar hymn, “The Tantum Ergo.” Holy moly, it was coming from Mr. Elkins! I was astonished and even more astonished when he started singing the second verse in Latin:

Genitori, Genitogue / Laus et Jubilato

Salus, Honor, Virtus Quogue / Sit et Benedictio

Procedenti Ab Utroque / Compar sit Laudtio – Amen

I almost joined him for the “Amen” by rote but I didn’t dare. My heart was pounding as I slowly pulled open the door of the stall and peeked out. Mr. Elkins looked up and saw me in the mirror. “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t know you were in there.” I managed a weak reply, something like, “It’s ok” as I headed for the exit. “You should wash your hands,” I heard him say as he continued mopping the floor. And then he added, “Be careful, the floor’s wet.”

Without a word I went to the sink wondering “Who is this man inside Mr. Elkins?” And as I washed my hands without soap, drying them on my pants, I backed away toward the exit but the man inside Mr. Elkins continued mopping and never looked up as I slid out of the door!

Gradually over time the man inside Mr. Elkins and I became friends or perhaps I should say we became friendly. I wasn’t invited to his house for dinner and I never invited him to mine – no, no nothing like that – I didn’t even know if he knew or even cared to know my name. Or even if he knew I was the boy in the bathroom that heard him singing “The Tantum Ergo” that day. If he did he never mentioned it and neither did I but whenever or wherever I saw him since then I always said, “Hi, Mr. Elkins” or “Good morning, Sir” and the man inside Mr. Elkins always responded “Hello, son” or “Good morning, son” but he never made eye contact or smiled much.

Of course, I was not the only one to acknowledge the man inside Mr. Elkins. Wilburn Smith and Richard Vancil, the two toughest 7-year-olds at Holy Trinity said they knew all along the man inside Mr. Elkins was a swell guy. “Yeah, sure” I said but I stayed being friends with them even though Wilburn was a bully and Richard always exaggerated everything.

Then one morning I arrived at school to learn that the man inside Mr. Elkins had died the previous evening. Our principal, Sister Jane Francis, gathered the entire student body in the church to say the rosary for the repose of his soul and afterwards Father Moremen, holding back his tears, said, “Despite his great shyness and poor eyesight he did the work of three men half his age.”

I was in shock and could not hold back my tears. I just kept thinking, “I should have known. I should have known.”

His funeral mass was held three days later and the entire student body joined the congregation of mourners that filled the church.

Father Lawler delivered a powerful eulogy ending with, “You must not forget this wonderful man. I forbid you to ever forget Frederick Elkins!” And I did not. Ever since the man inside Mr. Elkins was identified as “Frederick” he became part of the man inside me.

Meanwhile, sister Mary Stanislaus was brief with her remarks on my final first grade report card “Ramon is a good student and ready for 2nd grade.” Sister Stanislaus must have known something I didn’t, nobody was ready for 2nd grade.

Martin: Consider This from Mark Twain “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.”

Martin: “The Noiseless Spider” by Walt Whitman.

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist, as well as a novelist. He is considered to one of the most influential poets in American literature and often referred to as the father of free verse. He was born in Huntington, NY on May 31, 1819 and died in Camden, New Jersey on March 26, 1892. Walt Whitman was 72 years old.

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.

Seattle, Chief of the Squamish.

Growing up in the Suquamish village on the Puget Sound, Seattle witnessed the arrival of the first whites in the Northwest. By the time he became chief of his tribe, the early forays of trappers had given way to a steady stream of settlers. It fell to Seattle to devise a strategy for dealing with these invaders. Rejecting violence, Seattle put his trust in peaceful dialogue. But as the intentions of the whites became clear, his goal focused simply on the survival of his people.

In 1830 Seattle converted to Christianity. He tried to integrate his faith with the beliefs of his ancestors. But with each year his traditional world grew smaller. He believed the struggle with the whites represented contrasting spiritual values. The whites considered the land a commodity. But as Seattle observed, “We are part of the earth and it is part of us.”

In 1855 Seattle signed a treaty that transferred the Indian lands to the federal government in exchange for a reservation in the Northwest territory. In a letter addressed to President Pierce he wrote, “One thing we know, which the white man may one day discover – our God is the same God. You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot.”

Chief Seattle died on June 7th, 1866, near the city that today bears his name.

His quote, “Humankind did not weave the web of life. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves.”

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: “The Tiger” by William Blake.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,In the forests of the night;What immortal hand or eye (eee) Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies,Burnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art,Could twist the sinews of thy heart?And when thy heart began to beat,What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain,In what furnace was thy brain?What the anvil? what dread grasp,Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars threw down their spearsAnd water’d heaven with their tears:Did he smile his work to see?Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright,In the forests of the night:What immortal hand or eye, (eee)

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake was a poet, painter and printmaker.

His more notable works were “Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Blake’s work was largely unrecognized during his life. But highly regarded later by critics and readers for his expressiveness and creativity and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work.

He was born on November 28th, 1757 in London England and died there August 12th, 1827.

William Blake was 69 years old.

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 off 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.

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.

Renee: The story “Looking Back Within” by Ramon Gerard Estevez, AKA Martin Sheen, is included in this podcast by copyright permission of its author.

Renee: “Blessed Among Us: Seattle” by Robert Ellsberg is included here by granted copyright permission and we thank the author for this opportunity to share his work.