Becoming the Purpose
When I learned of the death of Karl Malden, at 97 years old, I remembered driving along and listening to an interview on public radio. The interviewer was asking the actor, Karl Malden, about his role in the movie, “On the Waterfront,” with Marlon Brando. Karl Malden played the priest in that movie. The interviewer asked him, “How did you prepare for that role?”
He said, “There was a priest that I knew who is the same size as me and I asked him if I could borrow his hat and his coat during the filming.” The priest told him that he would give them to him, but he said “Oh no, I don’t want to take them permanently; I just want to borrow them, and the film company will pay you for the use of them during this time.”
Then Karl Malden said, “Every day for several months I followed that priest around and three or four times a week I would have at least one meal a day with him and we would talk.” He said, “I became that person, I became that priest. I wore his hat and his coat, yes, but there was more than that. The speech that I used in the movie when I stood on the box and addressed the stevedores on the waterfront was the speech the priest had himself given to the stevedores.”
What had happened to the priest, actually, he’d got one of the stevedores – he lived in New York on the river front – to go back to work. The stevedores were Mafia controlled and the man was scared, because some men were threatening him. After the man went back to work he was severely beaten and nearly died, and the priest began to blame himself. But then he got up in front of all of those men and gave a speech. Karl Malden used that actual speech in the movie to talk about this important facet of life, that you cannot let other people take away the power from you.
What captured me in what he was saying was that it was not only preparation where he was putting on the hat and the coat, and not just reading the script that needed to be read; he was learning the lines, learning the principles, learning the truths, but he was also becoming that truth. He was letting the truth capture him, he was becoming that role.
We, too, if we have a purpose to fulfill, must become that purpose and not just let it be a hat and coat that we wear, just something that we put on.
God is Blessing You, Right Now!
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at Spiritual Solutions. Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.
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[...] When I learned of the death of Karl Malden, at 97 years old, I remembered driving along and listening to an interview on public radio. The interviewer was asking the actor, Karl Malden, about his role in the movie, “On the Waterfront,” with Marlon Brando. Karl Malden played the priest in that movie See more here: Becoming the Purpose [...]
GOODMORNING REV. ALAN. I LOOK FORWARD EVERYDAY TO READ YOUR INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGES THAT LIFT ME UP AND FILL MY HEART WITH HOPE, JOY, GRATETUDE, AND LEAVES ME WITH A WONDERFUL FEELING TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE DAY. I REMEMBER YOU AT UNITY. I MET YOU A FEW TIMES AND ALSO REMEMBER THE LAST SUNDAY YOU WERE THERE.I JOINED THE CHURCH UNDER REV. HAYES. UNITY HAS GIVIN ME THE BOOST I NEED EVERYDAY TO THANK GOD FOR EVERYDAY AND DONT TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED. NAMASTE MARGARET