Have you ever wondered who all those people are who are listed in the credits at the end of a movie? Do you have any idea of what a Key Grip does or how a woman can be a Best Boy? How in the world can there be so many people involved in the making of one little film?

Before I ever earned the “Rev.” before my name, I spent a good many years working in television and motion pictures. Indeed, there are a few movies where I am listed as one of those interminable names at the end. I have been not only a Key Grip and a Best Boy but a Gaffer, a Boomer, a Loader, a Puller, an A.D., an Assistant to the A.D., a 2^nd Unit Director and, believe it or not, a stunt car driver. Although the memory dims, I think I can still remember just what each job entailed although I am a little fuzzy over what my responsibilities were back when I was paid to be a Clapper. I know it didn’t have anything to do with applauding.

Such reminiscing calls me to reflect on the myriad of folk who have had a hand in my own making. Leading roles would go, of course, to my parents but the list of credits would be long and probably, much like the movies, of not great interest to anyone but those whose names are listed.

Nevertheless, it seems a worthy exercise to ponder just precisely who would be on the rolling credit when my life finally goes to black.

I would have to include my first grade teacher, Miss Schwartz, who planted the seed of reading pleasure deep within my soul. In that same category, although I cannot remember any names, I would honor the librarians at the Westchester Public Library in Los Angeles who allowed me to spend hours taking up valuable space just paging through old Life magazines and re-reading Beverly Cleary books.

I don’t know what I would call them: Molders and Shapers? This would be a long list that would contain all those dear people who sacrificed time and energy to get me where I’ve gotten. I doubt many of them ever imagined I’d end up working in the religion biz but, in some strange and mysterious way, because of them I did. I’m thinking now of Mr. Lopez from High School English Class who wouldn’t allow me to just get by. Curiously, I would also give credit to the college counselor who in my freshman year told me to save my parents’ money and drop out now. Her lack of conviction in my abilities, I am convinced, made me all the more able.

Teachers seem to make up a lot of my credit list. Part of that is because I have spent so much time in and around schools but it also reminds me of what a sacred profession teaching is. The power these men and women have in the lives of all of us should give us pause. It should also compel us to make sure they are the very best our society can offer. It is an interesting commentary on all of us that we pay teachers so little and expect from them so much.

Antithetically, I would list Reginald DuPree as “Reality Doser”. DuPree was my first employer out of college. When he hired me to work in his Import/Export business he took note of a proud fact I had listed on my resume. “Oh, I see you’re a college graduate.” he said to me. When I smugly smiled he went on to say, “I’ll give you an extra $25 a month for that.”

As the credits continue to roll, I would have to add a long list of names under the title “Inspirers”. Included would be the famous and the almost forgotten, all those who, by their lives, encouraged me onward and outward. Some of the great writers would be on this list but so would some of the not so great. I am humbled to remember how certain folk have reached out to me in the course of their lives and changed the course of my own.

I remember casually mentioning to a friend a long time ago that my wife and I were pregnant. “Oh brother is your life going to change!” is what he said and what he said was absolutely true. Under “Life Changers” I’d list three. Under “Life Sustainer” I’d list just one: my wife, my lover, my dearest friend.

The list is long and growing longer so I’ll have to leave some space for other names between now and the inevitable The End.

The recent release of the new movie production of John LeCarre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which involves the search for a mole within the British Secret Service, reminds me of another search closer to home that scandalized America and shook the FBI to its core.

His name is Robert Philip Hanssen and he was a 25-year career FBI agent who was arrested in 2001 for spying for the Soviets. His friends and neighbors, his co-workers and superiors, all expressed shock and disbelief. Apparently, Hanssen exhibited the most conservative and traditional of values as he went about his nefarious business. No one suspected that he was a willing participant in a terrible treachery.

All kinds of theories have been proposed as to how the man managed to pull off what the Justice Department called “possibly the worst case of intelligence disaster in US history”. Some suggest that he was simply in it for the thrill. Others say it was the money. I’ve read one analysis that plays with the idea that Hanssen was schizophrenic and literally led two parallel lives that never seemed to cross.

Interestingly to those of us who ponder issues of morality, there are some experts who believe that Hanssen may have managed to compartmentalize his life so much that he was totally unaware of the damage he was doing to others.

While serving in the FBI, Robert Phillip Hanssen was an active follower of Opus Dei, the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic organization that seeks a kind of Christianity more akin to the Middle-Ages than the 21^st Century. Opus Dei is rabidly anti-modern, anti-ecumenical and, most certainly anti-communist. Given this fervent religious conviction, it is almost unbelievable to think that Hanssen was involved in such a reactionary movement while, at the same time, selling secrets to the Russians.

Almost.

But haven’t we all met people who have, on a much smaller scale, acted in similar ways as did Mr. Hansen? Good, decent folk who have managed through intellectual self-manipulation to compartmentalize certain aspects of their lives so that they do not affect other aspects.

For instance, sensitive as I am to the foibles of ministers and priests, I have, on occasion, been both amused and a little shocked to find radar detectors on the dashboards of some of my peers. I wonder how they have managed to work out the seeming incongruity of a man or woman employed in an occupation based completely on honesty and trust with such a dishonest activity. They have managed, of course, because they see no connection between radar guns and religious activity.

Kids are good at pointing out this same incongruity. Sometimes they do it with their behavior rather than their voices. After all, if one’s normally honest and truthful parent brags of beating the government out of taxes that are rightfully owed, why should we blame a teenager for breaking the law in his or her own way? All they are doing is compartmentalizing their lives in the same way most of us adults do.

One of my heroes is the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin who spoke often of the need to have a “seamless garment” of philosophical consistency. If we claim to be pro-life in regard to the not yet born, we must also be pro-life in regard to capital punishment or reckless defense spending or the battle against AIDS or a host of other examples where being pro-life means more than picketing Planned Parenthood Clinics. Compartmentalizing allows us to ignore the inconsistencies that fill our lives.

For those of us who have worked in social services, an all too common example of compartmentalizing can be found in cases of abuse. Often the abuser leads an exemplary life in all areas but one, a very terrible one. Long ago I learned not to be surprised to discover that some of the most seemingly upright of folk are engaged in the most despicable of activities. Even more shocking, perhaps, is how often these perpetrators fail to see the incongruity in their lives. A lifetime of inconsistency can build a strong foundation for a future of contemptible incongruity.

There is an old saying in my circles about making sure you take the log out of your own eye before you point to the speck in another’s. Perhaps before condemning Mr. Hanssen and others like him, we search for similar inconsistencies in our own lives.

Periodically, I find it both helpful and necessary to leave my routine and spend time reflecting on who I’ve become and what I want still to do. Such ruminating used to find a welcome home at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. There the dozen or so monks welcome those folk who, like me, need time apart.

It really is a lovely place. Like an island to a shipwrecked sailor, the monastery rests in the center of a vast valley. Each time I drove onto the property, a palpable sense of peace surrounded me. I cherish the memory of those holy times.

I would often bring more books than I should and make more plans than I ought. But then there were those times when I focused less on projects and more on place. Sitting with the brothers in their simple sanctuary, breathing deep and slow, I remembered again what really matters.

Contemplating those sacred times apart, my thoughts turn to the writing of Thomas Merton. Merton was a Trappist monk who captivated much of the world with his honest writings of the spiritual journey. A sentence or two from his work can be all the fodder one needs to feed the soul. I’ll never forget the time I was pulled up short with this profound thought: “The intention to please God, pleases God.” It may not seem like much to some but for those of us who live with questions and doubt, such a promise is deeply comforting.

And thinking of honest writers, one of my favorites is Anne Lamott whose take on things spiritual is quirky to say the least. Here’s one that I’ve been carrying around in my notebook waiting to share it with you: “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.” That particular perspective is revealed, over and over again, in a couple of my favorite books by Anne: “Traveling Mercies” and “Bird by Bird”. Great reading for your next retreat.

Another resource for reflection comes not from a Christian monk but a Buddhist, Jack Kornfield. He reminds me again of the discipline involved in the spiritual quest with a clever quip: “There is no McMeditation.”

James Finley, whose book, “The Contemplative Heart,” is an excellent guide to take on your retreat. Finley used to have a poster in his office that read…“Things to do today: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.”

Going on retreat, whether to a beautiful monastery or to the privacy of, as Virginia Woolf put it, “a room of one’s own,” allows us to see the world around us in ways that can be transforming. Nikos Kazantzakis captured a sense of that conversion experience when he wrote… I said to the almond tree, “Sister, speak to me of God.” And the almond tree blossomed.

Toward the end of his life, Merton became keenly interested in Buddhism. In fact, he was in Bangkok dialoging with monks from all different religions the very day he was accidentally killed. Here is a comment of his that transcends religious differences and gets to the heart of any healthy spirituality: “What we have to be is what we are.”

If all this seems just too serious, allow me to offer one final quote from Merton’s profound pen: “What is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as play is perhaps what God takes most seriously.”

It would be so helpful if just once when the preacher asks us all to bow our heads and assume the position of prayer; she’d give us a sly, little grin and say instead, “Let us play!”