Macbeth

Does anything live up to the idea?  Does it live up to expectation?  For a moment, perhaps.  Maybe the shutter will open and close at the right moment and yield up a legacy – the moment.

Promise, dream, anticipation and hope. 

How does it feel going through?  How does it look in the rear-view mirror?  Maybe the shutter fired on time.  Memory did its job and forgot what we want to forget.

Tonight I watched Macbeth – a contemporary production.  It always takes me a while to settle – then I’m in – unlikely to leave with dry eyes.

Four hundred and fifty years.  Nothing changes.

I love the speeches.  Imagine writing that.  But the truth is in the movement of plot, the humanity of the characters – their strengths and their flaws.

Power.  Ambition.  Wealth.

And weakness.

I watch it around me.

I think about my own decisions.  My morals.  Where I’ve failed and tried to succeed.

To what end? 

To be greeted by St. Peter?

To see the face of God?

Or just to sleep at night?

What keeps me from driving daggers into sleeping kings?

What keeps me straight and poor?

Maybe my life is an error.  I should be enriching myself and taking whatever pleasures I wish. 

But would the blood be washed from my hands, or would they be forever stained?

Would my heart betray me?

I suffer the dreams anyway.

Better that one retains the loyalty of one’s heart.

As I watched the play, I thought about money and the shadow it casts upon the soul.

I thought of how money is made, or how it is married in the name of Christ.

I know these people.

Would that I had the looks.  Would that we all had – it would be a fairer world.

Would that my soul had a price.

But, for all the ill that I’ve done, all is not yet lost.  There’s something left to redeem.

And for this I’ll learn from Macbeth – there’s something greater than power, ambition and wealth.

Something inside of us all. 

A light that shines through September mists.

A flame to be shared, not lost.

The beacon of humanity.

I’ll hold on to what’s left.