| | Be not so long to speak...."What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable."
Okay. Romeo and Juliet. I love it. This is a passage that always strikes me. Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished. He is miserable, equating banishment to death. Then Friar Lawrence says this speech to him. It kills me sometimes how stupid Romeo sees. It also annoys me that I can see myself in him. I can think of a list a million items long of reasons I ought to be happy at every moment. Instead I, like a misbehaved and sullen wench, pout on my fortune and my love. Foolish, I know. Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. How true is that? If we ignore the many blessings that are around us, if we ignore all the amazing things that ought to make us smile and appreciate all we have, if we are too sullen we will die miserable. And when people try to help, we sometimes cannot see past our own foolish pain to see the light of their truth. We respond with what is admittedly one of my favorite lines "Be not so long to speak, I long to die!"
I can imagine God, talking like the friar when I am being a misbehaved wench:
You are alive and healthy, there art thou happy?
You have a loving family and amazing friends, there art thou happy?
You have shelter, security, and peace, there art thou happy?
And so on and so on. Every blessing, great and small. There, art thou happy?
And of course, more than any of it, and really the only one that matters, the only one I can't taint with my mind.
I sent my Son to die for you, to save you. There, art thou happy? Art thou satisfied?
And that is the one that kills me. I hate it when I see the depths of my stupidity and sin. I wonder when, exactly, Christ stopped being enough? What happened that my happiness depended on something or someone else? It happens. It does. I admit that, because I know it has happened before. But of course, nothing ends up working or making me happy, and so I begin to see the truth. I begin to see what is really satisfying.
There, are thou happy?
I think so.
And really, it is about time.
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| | Posted 5/20/2008 1:21 AM - 39 views - 0 comments
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