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The Priority of a Party: You cannot be too Happy (Much Ado about Nothing)

The Priority of a Party: You cannot be too Happy (Much Ado about Nothing)

Last updated on: May 3, 2016 at 4:59 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

The Priority of a Party: You cannot be too Happy (Much Ado about Nothing) 2016-05-03T16:59:03-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Beatrice_overhears_Hero_and_Ursula_opt One of my children once said: “I don’t want to be too good. It would be boring.” This was a sensible thing as the budding Socrates was shooting for moderation: too much of any virtue becomes a vice. The only problem was the use of “good.” If goodness is “rule keeping,” then too much goodness is not just boring, but wicked. When third-class passengers were warned by wrathful stewards that they would have to pay for the damage they were doing to doors they were breaking down . . . that was fine, except when they did it on Titanic as she was sinking.

The Good is one of our best words for the very nature of God. The Good can never be boring or wicked. The Good may use rules to regulate human society, but it will toss all the forms onto a bonfire if there is a party to be had. The Shakespearian comedy ends in a wedding and a tragedy in death. . . God is for parties.

The difference between atheism and Christianity is this:

In atheism, life is a Shakespearian tragedy that may contain some comedy.

In Christianity, life is a Shakespearean comedy that contains some tragedy.

God never wanted us to suffer senselessly. He is always in favor of all the joy we can get and it is Christianity in the West that made humanism (all people are important) a vital part of a civilization. The tragedy of life comes when we fail to understand this truth. Our sin makes things serious, but our God is always trying to repair things and make life as beautiful as possible. Nobody is good. Nobody deserves a party. Everybody would disappoint you if you knew all about them, but every one of us can repent, head the right way, and do better.

We should not want our just desserts but mercy, and mercy and grace are readily available.

My favorite play making this point is William Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. Benedick hates women and Beatrice hates men. Both swear off romance and marriage. You know what God will do. Shakespeare does if you don’t. These are two people in need of marriage with each other. It is a jolly lark and He will have it.

Erotic love is for our joy and Shakespeare understands that only a few great souls (priests, monks, and saints) are called to this better way. God created happiness in love. If our society is obsessed with this particular pleasure, it does not help to pretend it is not pleasurable!

A character like Don John cannot be happy because he is immoderate and he delights in harm:

I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in
his grace, and it better fits my blood to be
disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob 355
love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to
be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied
but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with
a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I
have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my 360
mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do
my liking: in the meantime let me be that I am and
seek not to alter me.

Americans think a melancholy man like Don John is “serious” when often such men are merely emotionally constipated. There is nothing Christian about hatred or a man who obsesses about the foibles of others. If you wish to drag someone down, you are not participating in Christianity.

Evil men like Don John can use the power of love to create misunderstandings, hatred, and death. Yet sin and evil cannot win if we will only tell the truth. The truth will set us free. Fundamentally, we are all like Beatrice:

Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best
becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in
a merry hour.

We were born in a merry hour, but our own sins and the faults of others make us quarrelsome. God will help us all, if not in this life, then in the life to come to find love. Beware! There exists another way to live. Instead of being moved by love, we can be moved by envy:

Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing.

The advice Shakespeare gives to some of the wretched people of this world who would drag up every fault and condemn us all is to sing “hey, nonny nonny.” Sin is nonsense and the only proper response to narrowness, hate, and impotent rage is “hey, nonny nonny.”

Beatrice and Benedick love each other, but can only be induced to love by a prank. So it goes. Much of life that is good, before God makes all things wonderful, can only come to us as a joke We sin, but our sin separates us from the very thing we most want. We do what we think is “right,” but we do so in a crabby and narrow way and miss the reality of the right. God keeps trying to help us to stumble into love.

Wicked men try to mess up God’s joking us into ceasing our choice for unhappiness. The world is full of horrors and Jesus weeps when He sees death, but death is not the last word. The last word is life and joy. Generally this is because each of us:

… cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endeared.

We love our illusion of virtue . . .when nobody is good. We invent evils in others that are absurd . . . as absurd as believing Hero, the most virtuous of women in the play, could be a cheater. We forgive ourselves for much and are harsh, even about things we know in our hearts are lies, about others. The law is a Dogberry . . . stumbling, blind, a bit tipsy toward truth, but reaching it nonetheless. Law is most dangerous when most competent and ideological and best when in the hands of humane and merciful men. Claudio hastily judges Hero and is a wicked fool, but Hero forgives him and Hero repents and so Claudio is redeemed.

What should we do? We need a Friar Francis who understands how men and women are. We must find truth, love purely, have a party reflecting the state of joyous Heaven.

Say: “Hey nonny nonny.”

————————————————–

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. The Winter’s Tale started things off, followed by As You Like It. Romeo and Juliet still matter, Lady Macbeth rebukes the lust for power, and Henry V is a hero. Richard II shows us not to presume on the grace of God or rebel against authority too easily. Coriolanus reminds us that our leaders need integrity and humility. Our life can be joyful if we realize that it is, at best, A Comedy of Errors. Hamlet needs to know himself better and talks to himself less. He is stuck with himself so he had better make his peace with God quickly and should stay far away from Ophelia. Shakespeare gets something wrong in Merchant of Venice . . . 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 Love’s Labours Lost. Brutus kills Caesar, but is overshadowed by him in Julius Caesar. We should learn not to make Much Ado about Nothing.

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