Macbeth Revisited

Fifty-one years ago, when I graduated from high school, I used a passage from Macbeth as the jumping off point for my graduation speech.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.  It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

I used this passage, because it demonstrated such a contrast to what I believed about life then, and it still does today after 50+ more years of life.  I have pondered it again recently, because two students I am tutoring are reading Macbeth.

How did Macbeth arrive at this point of bitterness and despair?  My answer is that he accepted no moral absolutes and believed that he could manipulate events to achieve his destiny.  He was unwilling to leave his future in the hands of either God or fate.  I know some people like that!  They may not be murderers, as Macbeth was, but they certainly do try to manipulate outcomes and do not concern themselves with what is “right” or “wrong” in the process. 

The solution is to:

1.        Agree with God about what constitutes right and wrong.

2.       Acknowledge that it is impossible to be “good” on one’s own.

3.       Believe in the redemption offered through the death of Christ.

4.       Put the future in God’s hands.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge him,

And he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3: 5-6 (NIV)

This does not guarantee smooth sailing in life.  If my future had been revealed to me on that graduation day, I would have been sure there was some mistake.  “Hey, that can’t be my life….you’ve got me mixed up with someone else!” 

But, what this approach to life does is to give one a means of dealing with both the agony and the ecstasy.  It removes a great burden of anxiety over the future.  It is still OK to have long term and short term goals, and to make plans, but it is done without attempts at manipulation of people and events.  It avoids the temptation to rage when circumstances don’t fall into place in the desired fashion.

Life is not meant to be “a tale told by an idiot.”

I am come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  Jesus Christ in John 10:10

Helen by Euripides

Soooooooo…..after reading all of these plays in which the Trojan war is described, and Helen is blamed for it, we are now supposed to believe that she was actually in Egypt the whole time, and it was a phantom Helen that ran off to Troy with Paris.

Helen opens this play with a monologue about her woes.  She was a good and true wife to Menelaus, but Zeus was looking for a way to decrease the population of mankind, and Cypris was looking to make trouble, so Paris was enticed by Helen’s beauty into coming to Sparta to try and win her.  He believed he was carrying her off to Troy, but it was really only a pretend Helen… "an image out of the breath of heaven.”  The real Helen was whisked off to the home of Proteus in Egypt, because he was the most virtuous of all men and would keep and protect her until she could be reunited with Menelaus.  

Menelaus and the hosts from Sparta pursued Paris and many years of war ensued in the attempt to retrieve Helen.  Many men died on both sides, so Zeus accomplished his purpose of population control.  When the war was over, Menelaus thought he had won Helen back and set sail for home, only to wander about having trouble for many more years….and of course, he only had the phantom Helen.

Meantime, Proteus died and his son Theoclymenus, instead of protecting Helen decided that he wanted her for himself.  But, Menelaus and his men are shipwrecked on the shores of Theoclymenus’ kingdom.  Theoclymenus will kill him if he figures this out.  Helen and Menelaus meet and hatch a plan for their escape, but it requires enlisting the help of Theoclymenus’ sister Theonoe, who is a prophetess.  They convince her that helping them is in keeping with the gods’ wishes, so she agrees not to tip Theoclymenus off as to what is really happening.

Menelaus pretends that he is arriving with news of the death of Menelaus.  Helen convinces Theoclymenus that she will be a true wife to him once she has been allowed to bury her previous husband Menelaus at sea.  Theoclymenus is talked into giving her a ship and the other things she needs for the proper burial rituals.  But, Menalaus’ men, who have been hiding in a nearby cave, join him on the ship and overpower the crew.  Helen and Menelaus and the Spartans make good their escape.  Theoclymenus is talked out of pursuing them by the appearance above him of Castor and Pollux, who are brothers of Helen, and who tell him that it is the will of the gods for Helen and Menelaus to be reunited.

Interesting quotes:

*Helen bemoans her beauty as a curse.  Would God I could rub my beauty out as a picture, and assume hereafter in its stead a form less comely…”

*She ponders suicide rather than an unhappy marriage.  …when a husband she loathes is mated with a woman, even life is loathly to her.  Best for her to die; but how shall I die a noble death?

When Menelaus arrives shipwrecked and in rags…This is the crowning woe in all my misery, to beg the means of life from other princes, prince though I be myself; still needs must I.  Yea, this is no saying of mine, but a word of wisdom, “Naught in might exceedeth dread necessity.”

Helen tries to get Theoclymenus to behave as nobly as his father Proteus would have….reflect thy father’s justice; for this is the fairest ornament of children, when the child of a virtuous sire resembles its parents in character.

Conclusion of the chorus:  Many are the forms the heavenly will assumes; and many a thing God brings to pass contrary to expectation; that which was looked for is not accomplished, while Heaven finds out a way for what we never hoped; e’en such has been the issue here.

My conclusion…..All that Trojan War fuss over a phantom Helen?!?!?!?!?

Awake at Night

Running down the corridors,

Drifting ‘round the room,

Creeping o’er my coverlets,

Silent as a tomb.

Grisly, ghost-like images,

Tangled webs of thought,

Meaningless, nonsensical,

With feelings overwrought.

Why does sleep elude me,

Why visions strange appear,

Unbidden torrents sweep about

And produce unholy fear?

Where is that blissful rest?

Have I not earned the peace,

Of sweet, secure oblivion,

A respite from life’s griefs?

But fitfully I toss,

Barely submerged in gray,

And too soon dawns the clarity,

Of the sunlit, breaking day.

Narcissus

Delicate white petals

Surrounding a smile of gold,

Balanced on a stalk,

Slender and green.

Narcissus

Handsome youth

With golden smile

Balanced on the brink

Of glassy pond.

Narcissus

Self-absorbed youth,

Arrogant smile,

Teeters on the slender edge

Of inevitable disaster.

Narcissistic

The Wisdom of Lady Cardinal

Last night as we ate dinner, we were treated to a glimpse of the cardinal courting ritual.  A male and female cardinal came to the birdfeeder together.  Seeing them together is not typical during most of the year.  The male sat directly in front of the seed, while the female was at a right angle to him on the side of the perch.  He picked up a seed and placed it in her mouth.  She accepted it.  He fed her several times.  If he didn’t do this quickly enough, she sat there with her mouth open waiting until he caught on to his responsibility.

If Mr. Cardinal is going to “get lucky” tonight, he has to prove that he knows how to take care of a lady and provide for a family.  Unfortunately, human beings aren’t wise enough to figure this out.  Young women in our culture have accepted the lie that they can be sexually “liberated,” and that if things don’t work out, they can make it as single mothers.  Some teenage girls look upon having a child as a status symbol, or at least, something that gives meaning to their lives.   If any thought is given to the realities of caring for a child, it is “magical” thinking that is not based in reality at all.

Here are some interesting statistics I found.  Although two-thirds of single mothers are employed outside the home, only two-fifths are employed full-time year round.  The average income of a family headed by a single mom is only one-third of the average income of a family comprised of a married couple.  So, most children being raised by single mothers are being raised in poverty. 

I have seen this problem close up.  My heart breaks for young women who have made unwise choices and whose children suffer the consequences.  If they were birds, they wouldn’t survive.  Because they are people, and there are programs in place to assist, they “survive,” but not necessarily in a healthy fashion.

I have also watched a cute little downy woodpecker come to the bird feeder over and over.  Each time he picks up a seed, he carries it to the same spot in the large maple tree.  I do not see the female at the feeder until late in the summer.  It is apparently his duty to bring home the food, and he does it with diligence.  As I watch him hurry back and forth, I am filled with admiration.  I love that little bird.

God has placed wisdom in the instincts of His creatures.  He has placed a conscience in those who are made “in His image.”  Our culture has taught young women to ignore their conscience and accept something less than God intended.  Our culture has taught young men that they can get away with being irresponsible.  They do not have to prove themselves in order to have the privilege of mating.  Our young women are not wise enough to wait like Lady Cardinal with mouth open expecting to be fed.  Our young men are not diligent enough to exhaust themselves like Mr. Downy Woodpecker in providing for their families.

If only humans were as wise as birds…….

Entertaining the Thought

Committing an atrocity takes some thought and planning.   How does a person go from being “normal” to becoming a monster?

A fleeting thought passes through the mind.

The thought returns and is briefly reflected on.

The details of the idea are sketched in.  Perhaps at this point, the person believes he is only writing fiction in his mind. 

He meets someone either in person or through a book or online influence who reinforces his idea.

Carrying out the plan begins to seem possible.  Details are worked out.  Where would I buy what I needed?  When would I do this?  How will I pick the location?

Information is gathered.  Items to carry out the plot are actually purchased.  They sit in his room begging to be assembled or tried out.  Bomb-making equipment is stashed in the closet or a weapon is hidden under the bed.

Increasing amounts of time and thought are expended.  At some point the balance tips, and it is no longer “if,” but “when.”

A date and location are chosen.  The person gets up in the morning knowing this is the day.  ‘I am actually going to do this,’ plays over and over in his mind.

The process can’t possibly occur in a couple of days.  Sliding all the way down the slippery slope would take weeks, months or years.  A person could stop himself at almost any point in the process and say, “NO!  I will not do this evil thing.”  But…it would be easier to stop near the beginning than the end.  As the “event” nears, the imperative will become stronger and pick up speed.

It must take a certain amount of social isolation or at least, compartmentalization, for no friend or acquaintance to recognize the roaring freight train of the inevitable.

And then…the whole world knows what has gone on silently behind closed doors and in the recesses of the perpetrator’s mind.  Those who love him protest that it cannot be so.  Those who knew him casually are surprised.  The rest of the world asks ‘why?’ or shrugs it off, if it didn’t impact them directly.

The world would be a terrifying place if we knew how many people were someplace on that slope of tiny decisions spiraling downward.

Ion by Euripides

Phoebus (aka Apollo) forces himself on a young mortal woman named Creusa.  She finds herself pregnant and manages to hide this from her family.  She delivers the baby alone in a cave and decides that she must abandon him.  Unknown to her, Phoebus is watching out for the baby, and he is transported to a shrine for Phoebus where he grows up in service to the god.

Many years pass.  Creusa has been married to Xuthus for some time, but they have not been able to have children.  They travel together to the temple of Phoebus to plead their case for a child.  Creusa meets her lost child, but of course, does not recognize him.  While she talks with him, Xuthus has gone into the temple.  He comes out saying that he was promised that the first person he saw on leaving the temple would be his son.  Ion, who is actually Creusa’s son, is the first person he sees.

When Creusa learns that Xuthus now has a “son” and that he plans to take him back to Athens with them, she is upset.  She feels that he has a son, but she doesn’t, and that this young man will now ascend to the prominent place that her own offspring should have had.  On the advice of an old servant, she decides to kill Ion.  She possesses vials of the blood of a Gorgon, and one of these is a death potion.

Creusa arranges for the death potion to be placed in the goblet of Ion which will be used in the celebration Xuthus is giving in honor of Ion becoming his son.  Fortunately, the first round of drinks is spilled out as an offering to the gods.  A bird laps up some of Ion’s drink and dies.

Ion now decides that he must kill Creusa, who he thinks is his step-mother, because she intended to kill him.  In the nick of time an old prophetess arrives with a chest containing items found with Ion when he was a baby.  Creusa realizes that Ion must be her son and is able to describe in detail the contents of the chest.  Ion now believes she is his mother.  The two are ecstatic to find one another after all these years, and the fact that they just recently were intending to kill one another is forgiven and forgotten.

This is a pretty tangled and convoluted plot.  Lies and misunderstandings abound.  I suppose if one were to have actually seen this performed as a play there would have been great suspense wondering if either the mother or son would kill the other before figuring out their relationship.  Tragedy seems inevitable until the very end.

As the goddess Athena comments in conclusion:  ‘Tis ever thus; Heaven’s justice may tarry awhile, yet comes it at the last in no wise weakened.

And the chorus responds:  It is only right that he, whose house is sore beset with trouble, should reverence God and keep good heart; for at the last the righteous find their just reward, but the wicked, as their nature is, will never prosper.

I’m a bit surprised to hear this from the Greeks whose gods seem so capricious and flawed.  In fact, earlier in the play Ion comments to Phoebus:  How, then, can it be just that you should enact your laws for men, and yourselves incur the charge of breaking them?.....For when ye pursue pleasure in preference to the claims of prudence, ye act unjustly; no longer is it fair to call men wicked, if we are imitating the evil deed of gods, but rather those who give us such examples.

Thankfully, as Christians we have a God who is a good example.  Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are---yet was without sin.  Hebrews 4:14, 15