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If you were in King Lear\u2019s family, the play is a tragedy. If you were the average Englishman, then the play is a miracle of divine goodness. Seeing this goes a long way to answering one worry some have about God, evil, and God\u2019s goodness.<\/p>\n
Seeing God\u2019s plan in action in a short period of time (a decade) is impossible. The world and His will are too complex. To cite just one problem: God wants maximum human freedom with maximum human flourishing in a broken world. He is healing the world, allowing for our freedom, and bringing an end to history soon (as God counts soon). All the factors count: the fall of a sparrow, a hurricane in the Gulf, a crooked politician in Bolivia, a winning goal by a young girl in an elementary school in Mexico, and the billions of other events of this year . . . matter.<\/p>\n
A man must look at centuries to see the hand of God and even then, until the very end, we cannot be sure of His purpose.<\/p>\n
If one cannot see the plan in the entire Earth over a decade, how much more difficult is it to see what God has wrought in one family over a shorter period of time? King Lear was a fool and his folly left England in peril. He divided his kingdom between two daughters and left his most capable heir a power in France. Meanwhile, the King partied his way across the nation with a compact fighting force of loyal knights. If you were betting, you would have bet on endless civil war, invasion and conquest by France, and dire ruin for England.<\/p>\n
Read the play. Shakespeare rewrites the traditional tale to make things worse for the nobility and the Lear family, but better for England. The civil war is called off by a French invasion before it can do much harm. The invasion from France is led by the noble and brilliant Cordelia, but is defeated. This leaves England free of foreign rule, however, the victory was hard won. Beating Cordelia and the French radically disrupted the established nobility, leaving the worst dead, and the best in charge. As a result, England emerges from a\u00a0single battle<\/em> unified, with good leaders, and at peace.<\/p>\n England is saved from Lear by Lear\u2019s fall.<\/p>\n Americans should stop and reflect. We pray for peace in our time, but we do not wish a total peace that allows great evil to fester so that when it does break out, the cure kills the patient.\u00a0King Lear<\/em> paraphrases the Bible: better a ruling class to die than a nation. We have been in this place before now. After the Revolutionary War, the heroes went home, but the money grubbers and politicians stayed. At the state and continental level, they were soon bankrupting the nation and bringing on worse than the Revolutionary War, a civil war. The turmoil of the decade after the Revolutionary War would wipe out that class of leaders, along with a great deal of wealth. Things were very bad, but they got so bad that the Great Man, George Washington, decided to come out of retirement and preside over a constitutional convention.<\/p>\n If America were to disappear tomorrow, the Constitution of 1789, the work of that convention, would be a wonder and gift to history. Looked out in microcosm, the time period from the end of the Revolution through 1789 was a time of peril and pain. Many a Lear, fools who speculated in paper money or debt, ended up in trouble. These were real tragedies, but Yankee Doodle survived.<\/p>\n We had our own King Lear\u00a0<\/em>moment, a time where the King is dead, but John Bull, the average Englishman, thrives. . . all was well that ended well. For the United States we can pray that once again things turn out well for \u201cWe the People\u201d even if the political class faces extinction. For that we will need a Washington: a disinterested man, first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countryman.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n William Shakespeare went to God four hundred years ago. To recollect his death, I am writing a personal reflection on a few of his plays.\u00a0The Winter\u2019s Tale\u00a0<\/a><\/em>started things off, followed by\u00a0As You Like It<\/a>. Romeo and Juliet<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>still matter,\u00a0Lady Macbeth<\/a> rebukes the lust for power, and Henry V<\/a> is a hero. Richard II <\/a>shows us not to presume on the grace of God or rebel against authority too easily.\u00a0Coriolanus<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>reminds us that our leaders need integrity and humility. Our life can be joyful if we realize that it is, at best,\u00a0A Comedy of Errors.<\/a>\u00a0 Hamlet<\/a><\/em> needs to know himself better and talks to himself less. He is stuck with himself<\/a> so he had better make his peace with God quickly and should stay far away from Ophelia<\/a>. Shakespeare gets something wrong in Merchant of Venice<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/a>. . . though not as badly as some in the English Labour Party or in my Twitter feed. Love if blind, but intellectualism is blind and impotent in\u00a0Love\u2019s Labours Lost<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>Brutus kills Caesar, but is overshadowed by him in\u00a0Julius Caesar.\u00a0<\/a><\/em>\u00a0We should learn not to make Much Ado about Nothing.<\/a> <\/em>We might all be Antony<\/a>, but if we would avoid his fate then we must avoid flattery and the superficial love of\u00a0Troilus and Cressida<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>We are fools, but our goal should be to accept it and not to degenerate into Biblical fools during our Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/a>.\u00a0Richard III<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>is a symptom of a bad leadership community, but be careful that use\u00a0Measure for Measure\u00a0<\/a><\/em>to guide your reaction to the mess. The modern university is Iago in\u00a0Othello<\/em> <\/a>playing on our sins to destroy the nation. You can\u2019t accumulate your way to a great leader and personal piety in\u00a0Henry VI (Part I)\u00a0<\/a><\/em>is not enough to make a great king. God will save the King, not our stupid partisan squabbles seen in Henry VI (Part 2)<\/a> <\/em>\u00a0and not kingmakers as existed in Henry VI (Part 3).<\/a> <\/em>Fortunately, in God\u2019s world\u00a0All\u2019s Well That Ends Well.<\/a>\u00a0Two Gentlemen<\/a><\/em> remind me that being in love is grand. King John<\/a> <\/em>keeps winning and so loses. Slander always gives way to truth in Cymbeline.<\/a>\u00a0We need patrons, but God help us if we flatter them and lose them as Athens did with Timon of Athens.<\/a>\u00a0We need good leaders and not have to hope against reason that one turns out well like young Prince Hal in\u00a0Henry IV Part One.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>Being powerful is all fun and games, until it isn\u2019t as Henry learns in\u00a0Henry IV Part Two.<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>Virtue can be jolly and edgy, as The Merry Wives of Windsor<\/em> <\/a>show. We can all be shrews and need\u00a0The Taming of the Shrew.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Pericles<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>did not live in a Zootopia, his world was more realistic. No revenge lest we end like\u00a0Titus Andronicus.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>Shakespeare shows what the fusion of Christianity and classicism did for all of us in\u00a0Venus and Adonis.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>It is hard to be delivered from evil, if we pursue it as did the evil man in\u00a0The Rape of Lucrece.<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>God save us from the leader like\u00a0King Lear<\/a><\/em> who rules by tricks and fear, though God will make things the best they can be.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you were in King Lear\u2019s family, the play is a tragedy. If you were the average Englishman, then the play is a miracle of divine goodness. Seeing this goes a long way to answering one worry some have about God, evil, and God\u2019s goodness. Seeing God\u2019s plan in action in a short period of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1007,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-reflections"],"yoast_head":"\n