King Lear

Yesterday we went to see Shakespeare’s King Lear. What a majestic tragedy; in fact the king of Shakespeare’s tragedies! It brought down the sunset on his career and was a desolate ending not nearly as pretty as our local tarn sunset.


King Lear provided me with a great literary example of how grief can snatch your mind, break your heart, kill you dead. Lear pranced and puffed the vain highs, crawled the grass-eating, Nebuchadnezzar lows. He loved a good show, valued appearance over substance. The play was a study in blindness: nuanced shades of myopia into character, motives, needs. Lear and his side-kicks played out baldly the blinding effects of pride, greed, avarice. Life became increasingly hopeless, bleak and flat under the stormy, uncaring sky. The desolation was breath-taking. Bethyl & I walked out of the theater into the blowing, cold rain. We were both left wrung out, exhausted, and spent--had to go for a walk in the rain to recover.  At first it was like walking on a fell top in the fog and ice.  Then the dawning of grace in a night sky became a stark contrast to this rampant nihilism. God showered us with prickles of praise, quiet gratitude. Thank you, Jesus, for redeeming us from the leering, yawning, chaotic chasm of Lear.