IN THE DARK, WHAT DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE?

By RAY WADDLE

After you lay the Bible down for the night, or blow out the menorah candles, or lock the temple doors till morning ... what is it you really believe?

If you could stay totally anonymous about it, what secret convictions would you disclose about God, miracles and death?

A new local play, faith/doubt, takes the words of actual Nashvillians who were interviewed about their spiritual beliefs, then fashions them into candid vignettes, humorous testimonies and the occasional song.

The result, recreated by the Actors Bridge Ensemble, is an unvarnished report from the field, a patchwork of human yearning, truths lost and found.

In a city where Bible talk and boardroom prayer are the currency of daily business, here’s a departure from official press releases. faith/doubt streamlines the sort of spiritual monologues that thousands quietly carry on night and day when the mics are turned off.

The play is a series of brief dispatches -- intense, resilient, visionary, bitter, conflicting.

There’s the woman who confides: When Jesus and I talk, I feel his presence so much, it’s like he’s looking deep into my eyes.

Another scoffs: Religion is just a bunch of social clubs.

I was saved at age 8, one guy angrily recalls, because the preacher made me feel guilty and dirty.

All creation hurts when anything in creation hurts, a woman pleads.

The names for God include healing, mercy and forgiveness, a Muslim woman shyly declares.

God loves me like a mother, a wiccan says.

I grieved for my father because he’s going to hell, a Protestant woman confesses.

A female divinity student asserts: I had an epiphany once -- flashes of light around me that no one else could see. (It turned out to be her eyeglitter getting into her eyes.)

This cascade of confessions is based on interviews with 70 local people, an initiative stirred by the Rev. Mark Forrester, United Methodist chaplain at Vanderbilt. His belief: personal stories possess power to breathe life into theology and religion. Soon he collaborated with Vali Forrister and Actors Bridge, getting grants from the Methodist denomination and Metro Arts Commission.

“These stories, turned into theater, allowed me to cross over and come back, cross over and come back, and get a new understanding of other faith claims,” Forrester says.

Attending last week, I thought faith/doubt’s vignettes tilted toward doubt. A recurrent theme was regret, vexation -- church recollections of overbearing adults twisting young souls with fear and misinformation.

But the play’s opening statement defines this 90-minute production: “When it comes to faith, everybody’s got a story, and every story is sacred.”
(Contact local columnist Ray Waddle at ray@raywaddle.com.)