"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell"
-St. Matthew 5:30
The assignment this week was to share Shakespeare in person and online, which I tried my best to do. The in-person experience was fairly interesting because I did it-wait for it, group-during my home teaching visit. I couldn't really run through the whole plot of my assigned play, and I also had to have a spiritual element to the message. So I ended up talking about the relationship between Falstaff and Hal.
Falstaff is the devil's advocate of this play. He's around to eat, drink, and be merry, and provide humor for everyone. But he doesn't do anything other than that. Hal, meanwhile, is going to become Henry V in a few short years, and while he is enjoying running around with Falstaff and his other friends, he has a royal destiny and has to accomplish it.
So I told the girls that I visit that they needed to be like Henry V and cast off anything that might be holding them back from their royal destinies as God's children. God has a plan for us, and wants us to accomplish it, but there are a lot of things in this world that can distract us and keep us from living up to our potential. So we need to do our best to minimize those influences in our lives, just like Henry V began to leave behind his old life to embrace his true character. (I did not, however, tell them about the part where Henry kills some people close to the end. I felt like it would defeat the purpose of the visit. Just a little).
As for sharing online, I did two things. I posted a comment on the blog by the all-female company I mentioned last week who put on a production of Henry IV, part 1, hoping to initiate a conversation and find out about their perspectives. However, this did not happen and I found out that my comment was apparently deleted (Who knows?) Fortunately for my Internet presence, I also posted a Goodreads review of my play. Here's the link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13020.King_Henry_IV_Part_1
I'm hoping to get some comments soon. Thanks for reading!
This is really cool with the gospel connection. I am impressed you found a good way to apply this into your home teaching.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the reaction of the girls or your companion? Did they seem interested in shakespeare now?