Highlights of my Sunday !
Firstly, hearing a very straightforward but practical sermon in church www.co-mission.org.uk/fcc/ by Andrew Nicholls on ‘blessed are those who are persecuted’ from Matthew 5.
Secondly, having an interesting chat with a South Korean friend I’d not spoken to much before, about acting. Perhaps all actors everywhere already know this but have never told me before! I learnt that there are four important things an actor controls. 1. Body language 2. Arms and hands as the direct expression of the brain 3.his voice to express emotion 4. His eyes, to convincingly communicate truth. If I want to be a creative director of films I need to know this stuff.
What was of particular interest to me in this conversation was my Korean friends eastern perception of his ‘heart’ as opposed to his ‘mind’. My friend Sung-Eun, also South Korean, is currently trying to illustrate pictures about Buddhist meditation, and she is using images of hearts and minds, but placing the mind inside the heart. Often when I study biblical truths or hear scriptures such as ‘love the lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind’ I like to draw a picture to illustrate this, and I place the mind in the brain. As seen in previous blog ‘hearts’ I’m trying to illustrate something about a man’s heart myself, as a very different issue to the mind.
Reading an article about Citizen Kane yesterday, http://www.martinsegur.com/wordpress/2005/06/22/narrative-perspective-in-citizen-kane/n I’ve been learning how films can use the whole background and set to paint a picture of the state of a mans heart or mind. We never really get to know the main character, Kane. I read, the ‘No trespassing’ sign at the beginning and end of the film is supposed to serve as a reminder that we can never really walk into the workings of a mans heart.
In answer to my question ‘what is the difference between expressing a heart to expressing a mans mind, or soul?’ My actor friend tried to ‘act’ this out to me visually delightfully.
He was showing me how we take in physical but also spiritual, ‘soul’ information about another person through our mind, then it goes into our heart, gets all mixed up, travels up to our mind again, then we respond and also create spiritual soul information. I was most impressed that he had thought about it and was so enthusiastic about it!
Thirdly, as I ate my lunch today I became gripped by a supposedly biographical film on BBC2 called The Birdman of Alcatraz 1962, starring Burt Lancaster as remarkable prisoner Robert Stroud, directed by John Frankenheimer. The prison cell environment and the carefullly crafted birdhouses created the perfect artistic opportunity to illustrate the condition of a mans heart or mind as the state of his ‘soul’ seems to improves through relationship with birdlife. 
Fourthly, I left facebook… freedom from what can sometimes become a little prison!
Fifthly, I had a lovely conversation with my Dad about his Tewkesbury Abbey annual concerts and then the Proms organ recital I went to yesterday. In the past year, we have been enjoying longer chats on the phone occasionally. I’m really thankful for this as our father-daughter relationship has sometimes felt distant and complex and personality wise, he isn't a big talker. It would be so great if I could replace all my facebook time with chats with my Dad or other family and friends that really matter to me.
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