Thursday, July 7, 2011

Sincerity Is Not Enough

In the middle of "West Side Story", as Anita sings "He'll murder your love, he murdered mine!" a man stands up in the audience and declares the women on stage "sluts", the play "immoral" and the coming conflict "unsatisfying" because "not enough of the criminals in the play die."

As Antony, in "Antony and Cleopatra", starts the beautiful speech reworked from Plutarch describing Cleopatra's sailing down the Nile ... a woman stands up in the audience screaming the play is a slur upon the Middle East, is unjustly critical, and arrogantly pictures the East as voluptuous and decadent in an effort to inflate the West and the West's masculinity.

A woman is adjusting her new hat in the mirror of the ladies' room when a woman enters and volunteers she does not like the hat, its color or style.

The righteous carry a heavy burden: A truth that must, must be shared. It is a moral duty, a responsibility. For who does not want to hear the truth? This search for the truth is inspiring and wonderful in us. It is the essence of scholarship and art, it is at the heart of scientific curiosity. But truth, as the New Testament clearly shows, can not be dictated.

Truth fills, it does not penetrate.

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