Till We Have Faces

If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin’s cheek,
Dashes the fire out. Oh, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer. A brave vessel
(Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her)
Dashed all to pieces. Oh, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed and
The fraughting souls within her.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

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Dear Kate,

This morning I am going to say something that can't be easily contradicted, which is rare.  

You see, even in yesterday's letter, I availed myself wide open to the criticism of those who might miss the point and retort, Well, you can't mean it's a bad thing to help the needy!?  I didn't include any back-paddling elaboration after making the suggestion that "all our 'doing goods' to others during a difficult time, such as now in a pandemic, can really be a big distraction," because there isn't one.

Because there needs not be any.  I trust I was speaking to a thoughtful person, which, in my book, means a person who has a story of his/her own to tell.

So here's today's uneasy contradiction: I believe one of the surest signs of a person's health is that one can tell one's own story and tells it well.

The flip side of that, of course, is that one of the surest signs of a person's unhealth is that one doesn't have the language to speak about oneself.  (As to why the language is not there, by the person's choice or it somehow being killed off--and by whom or what and when, that's a topic for another day.)

So we've been using this app called Zoom to "do church," as did many I suppose in the last two weeks to gather on the other side of intimacy.  On the video conference most people didn't show their face, not even a picture of themselves.  Not one youth.  So I asked my teenagers (each with his/her own device and in separate rooms, go figure): why?  Why so inhospitable, stingy, even hostile?

My daughter said Cos then you'll need to pay attention to how people see you.  My son didn't even care to answer my non-question.

It's obscene, hiding in the dark, faceless, eavesdropping, peeping on others' undressing (there's a word for such activity--and you guessed it right just now).  But I am not saying people don't have their good reasons to shut themselves in--they might well be too good that they must go unchallenged, assumptions as private doctrines, a Bible for one.  Last week's sermon was on breaking down walls.  I wanted to cry.

But we do tell our stories, don't we?  Social media, songs and movies, yes we do.  My son talks to me about "genre" all the time without I suspect knowing why there even needs be a word like that.  We are well-versed to kill the verses.

See above Miranda's speech to open the second scene of "The Tempest," what is she saying?  Here's the kill-verse version of the same speaking:

Dear father, if you caused this terrible storm with your magic powers, please put an end to it. The sky’s so dark it looks like it would rain down boiling hot tar if the sea weren’t swelling up to the sky to put its fire out. Oh, I suffered along with all the men I watched suffer! A fine ship, with some good people in it, I’m sure, smashed to pieces. Their dying shouts broke my heart! The poor people died. If I’d been a god I would’ve let the sea sink inside the earth before it had a chance to swallow up that ship and all the people it was carrying.

Well it sounds like a prayer.  But not the same prayer Shakespeare made her speak.  In fact, many students would rather speak the kill-verse prayer if it needs be spoken in an exam.  Useless! as my son would say, this Shakespeare stuff, can't get a job with it.

Why a job if we can't even show our faces?  What a life to live, even if to throw in a good job endless food frequent vacation healthy kids sexy spouse early retirement into the living?

"Iambic pentameter" it's called, what Shakespeare employed here to speak the prayer, but in blank verse, a common prayer.  Yet in every line he broke the strict iambic rhythm.

Broken for you.

Yours, Alex