Winning Is Temporary (King John)

Last updated on: May 31, 2016 at 8:29 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Winning Is Temporary (King John) 2016-05-31T20:29:53-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Shakespeare's_King_John_at_Drury_Lane_Theatre_opt Nothing is dumber than giving up morals for one victory, because victory is never forever.

Ask King John.

Disney had Prince John right when they made him a lion sucking his thumb on the throne in their animated Robin Hood. John had a lion-hearted brother and by comparison was not much to the Crusader, minstrel, and hero.

When Prince John finally became King John, he went from weakness to weakness to the point that nobody has taken the name “John” as King again in English history. He wasn’t horrible, just inept without dash. If John lived today, he would become a big school administrator . . . obsequious to money, brutal to subordinates, and forgotten after his tenure.

Even Shakespeare couldn’t make his title character memorable, but as usual the play is the thing if we wish to learn something important. Read King John to be sure of one thing: no victory is final, even if some defeats are forever. John keeps winning only to see his “victories” melt away under the weight of his moral compromises.

John should not be king, but “defeats” his nephew in a war that costs England much of France. In order to be secure, John has his nephew killed and this costs him the support of his own nobles. King John fights with the Church and robs the poor of church support. When France responds to the Pope’s call to depose John, bad King John makes his peace with the Pope. Just as John looks triumphant, he loses much of his wealth and then his life, poisoned by a mad monk.

John keeps winning at everything but the good life. As a result, his moral compromises hurt his nation and bring ultimate defeat.

We do this all the time when we forget that tomorrow will come and our moral compromises today will have consequences . . .eventually. We sow bad seed and if the seed does not come up immediately, then we think nothing will come of it all. We don’t bother to repent and uproot the seed because it “did not matter.” We won.

But no victory is forever . . . the winner lives to fight another day and that fight can be lost. How? Moral compromise in a party, church, school, or nation inevitably brings failure. Good people may be small in number, but they are loyal. The moral cannot be bought and will sacrifice for the good of the many. When they are lost, the impact is disproportionate to their numbers.

Win one election by nefarious means and the next election still comes.

Win a civil war at work and you have to come to work next week with a team that knows you have no real loyalty.

King John was a winner, but by foul means with foul friends and so he failed. Immorality brings disunity and it is disunity, division, and despair that destroys a nation or a group forever. You can live to fight another day, unless you lost through division and decadence.

Shakespeare says a united England cannot fall:

O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.–
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them: nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

Shakespeare gives these words to a bastard . . .not just in birth, but the bastard is right. If we are true to our values, then Providence will give us the victory.

Americans would do well to remember this truth . . . as would most churches, schools, and organizations. Our victories in the politics of our institutions are temporary, but defeat can be forever. Ask King John.

———————————————————–

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. We might all be Antony, but if we would avoid his fate then we must avoid flattery and the superficial love of Troilus and Cressida. We are fools, but our goal should be to accept it and not to degenerate into Biblical fools during our Midsummer Night’s Dream. Richard III is a symptom of a bad leadership community, but be careful that use Measure for Measure to guide your reaction to the mess. The modern university is Iago in Othello playing on our sins to destroy the nation. You can’t accumulate your way to a great leader and personal piety in Henry VI (Part I) is not enough to make a great king. God will save the King, not our stupid partisan squabbles seen in Henry VI (Part 2) and not kingmakers as existed in Henry VI (Part 3). Fortunately, in God’s world All’s Well That Ends Well. Two Gentlemen remind me that being in love is grand. King John keeps winning and so loses.

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