Prison or Refuge

CORDELIA

We are not the first
Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst.
For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;
Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown.
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?

KING LEAR

No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

That speech by King Lear in Shakespeare’s play of the same name, has resonated down through the years with the essence of old age which, regrettably, has been lost in our modern age.  However, it seems to be even more poignant in this time of COVID-19.  Lear responds to the daughter who has remained true to him as his world has been disintegrating around him throughout the play.  Little by little, through Lear’s folly rather than wisdom, he has made assumptions and followed his ego rather than seeking the higher wisdom that is possible for people who “grow old, instead to merely sinking into the aging process,”[1] to quote Helen Luke who was an exemplar of someone who did just that, ‘grow old’. 

As noted by Luke, Cordelia has the passion of youth and wants to go out and confront the evil that has overthrown the ruling value represented by Lear.  No, no – a thousand times no, is his response showing that as a result of all his trials and tribulations, he indeed has grown old, “Come, let us away to prison.”  The question for us today is our staying in place and self isolating a prison or a refuge.  It can be either depending on how we decide to see it.  This is a time, which seems to be more suited to introverts who seem to be more easily embracing this self-isolation, as a refuge than a prison.  At least that is my experience and the experience of Lorna as we are both strong introverts.  I’m not sure how the extroverts who are used to living in a world made for extroverts, are fairing.  I would suspect it is more of a prison for them.

Lear asks some engaging questions for these times; “Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;” I don’t know for sure who are the winners and who are the losers in this time of pandemic.  I suspect that it will be the usual suspects that win - those with the resources and influence seem to be able to win regardless of the circumstances.  The team of NBA basketball players that were all able to be tested while those on the front lines of dealing with the pandemic couldn’t.  It has become more evident in this time who is in and who is out in our society during the pandemic.  The essential workers have been recognized and acknowledged.   The front-line workers, the people who deliver the supplies and food, who work in the food store, and all the health care workers including cleaners, to those who pick the crops are now recognized as essential in our society.  Many of them are the lowest paid as it is clear that their remuneration has little or nothing to do with the essential nature of their work. 

It has, unfortunately, been brought front and centre what value we give to the aged in our society.  The fragility and inadequacy of the institutions where so many of our senior citizens spend end of their lives has been put in the spot light.  If that recognition is turned into action in the new normal of our lives that may be something positive that comes out of this dark cloud of COVID-19.  I live in hope that our society will grow in wisdom as a result of this rather than simply sinking back into the old ways of doing things.  I live in hope but am not hopeful - if that makes sense.

Blessings in your journey in this time of COVID-19; stay safe and keep the distance.

---

[1] Old Age, Journey Into Simplicity

Who’s in and Who’s Out

No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

King Lear Act 5 Scene 3: Lear to Cordelia

Who’s in and who’s out—that is the question (with apologies to Prince Hamlet).   That question has been resonating with me recently.   I have had three encounters with that question in the past couple of weeks.  The first, and most timely for today, was in an interview with American theologian and Episcopalian Diana Butler Bass on the CBC program Tapestry.  The subject of the talk was Religion and Spirituality.  Bass noted that she first truly realized why people were turning their backs on organized religion was on the tenth anniversary of 9-11 which fell on a Sunday.  She was hesitant to attend church as she was fearful it might turn into a celebration of nationalistic triumphalism.  She was assured by the priest that the service would have very quiet, reflective liturgy.  She decided to attend and was reassured when the liturgy was all the priest had promised and quite appropriate to the solemn occasion.  The preacher, who was not clergy, but rather someone, who had been working at the White House that day spoke in his sermon of the four thousand people who had lost their lives in the decade following that event.  She was at first incredulous and thought, it is fifty thousand; it is a hundred thousand!  Then she realized he was referring to the American lives lost in Iraq.  (Note: a Google search puts the actual count has the loss of life at of up to 190,000 people including 134,000 civilians).  Bass walked out of that service and when her husband texted her and asked if she was coming back to church, she replied, “I don’t know.”

Another example of who’s in and who’s out was in an article in the Globe and Mail on September 2^nd which was entitled, Hell and High Water.  It was addressing the seeming resistance to actually preparing for the ever increasing ‘floods of the century’ which are occurring with increasing frequency.  The article noted the example of the Mississippi River’s Great Flood of 1927.  The article noted the official death toll was 246.  However, that was only the people that officially mattered.  It didn’t include the lives of African Americans—Negros as they would have been classified—which brought the death toll to over one thousand.  Who’s in and who’d out; who’s counted and who doesn’t; who’s lives matter and who’s lives don’t.

The last example was inspired when I read the article and I recalled the passage in the Gospel of Matthew regarding the feeding of the five thousand by Jesus, “And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children”.   Oh by the way there were women and children but we don’t need to mention how many.  That is a recurring situation in the bible where women are often not named e.g. the Syrophoenician woman or the woman at the well.  People in the bible are often not named in the bible even when they are central the story.  This is true for men as well as women e.g. the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal son.  However, perhaps we should be thankful for all the people who are named and bring life to the stories.

However, the question I place before you today is, when does a person count and when do they fade into the background of the story of our lives?  We have made progress in recent years to address this question.  The response of Black Lives Matter is addressing the frequent impunity with which the police treat people of colour non-people who don’t count.  This is not restricted to the United States. In Canada deaths by police action is much rarer, thank God.   However, we still have police insisting that ‘carding’ is necessary for them to do their job.  People carded just happen to be mostly non-whites.  In Canada we have the hopeful move of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which reviewed the institutionalize mistreatment of aboriginal Canadians.  The institutions of the people who were ‘in’ treated aboriginal people as objects rather than as people.

Of course it is easy to sit back and point fingers and judge events and attitudes of actions of the past by today’s standards and values.  How do we examine culture, our governments, and our institutions including the churches, and above all ourselves, in how we view others?  Who do we hold as being in and who is out. Who counts and who doesn’t?   Some years ago I attended a conference on a group of mostly white men who were trying to deal with white middle class male privilege in ourselves and in our society.  Unfortunately the group tended to look mostly at society and not at ourselves.  The conference was attended by two Inuit men from northern Canada.  One of them noted that in their culture they believed that, “no one was bigger than anyone else.”   At resonated with me then and it still does. 

How do we treat no one as bigger than anyone else; everyone as the same importance as everyone else?  As a Christian, how do I treat each person as a child of God?  How do I relate to each person as someone who is “in” and not as someone who is “out”?  If I do not I truly am in the prison that Lear and Cordelia are going to—however they are aware of their prison walls unlike the rest of us.   I know I am going to fail; in a state if sin; I am going to miss the mark.  Fortunately I am offered forgiveness and can start again.  That is the mystery of things indeed. 

Thank be to God.