The Play Is the Thing

[From my archives ~ a post from my first year of blogging,June of 2010]

There is something about a good drama. Live theater can have a remarkable effect upon members of the audience. The power of drama and its influence was brought home to me recently while watching a film biography of Pope John Paul II. I learned that the young Karol Wojtyla was a member of an underground drama company, the Rhapsodic Theater, in Poland before he began considering the priesthood. His mentor had been encouraging him toward the priesthood when at one point young Wojtyla realized the he could make a positive change in the world by being a priest. Prior to that point he had been assuming that drama would be the way to effect positive change in his world.

Drama During Hard Times

Upon hearing that drama had been Pope John Paul’s first choice for positive change, I tried to imagine what drama must have meant to him and his colleagues living in Poland under Nazi occupation. Immediately I remembered hearing about an acting company in Serajevo during the Bosnian War in Yugoslavia. Even amid the fighting and bombing that completely disrupted that once grand city, the actors were determined to continue, and the people were determined to see that the plays went on. Furthermore, consider Czechoslovakia. When the communist Soviet Bloc fell apart, whom did the Czechoslovakians choose as their first democratically elected president? It was a playwright, Vaclev Havel.

What is it about a play? Why is drama so important? I think that a good play helps us to visualize what life can be like. It is one thing to talk about how things are, or how they could be, but it is another thing to illustrate life with a good drama. For the ancient Greeks, drama was a central act of community religious life. Their plays provided both instruction and catharsis (Now it’s making more sense that a noble young aspiring actor would eventually become Pope).

Widespread Appeal

Drama has a universal appeal. Every culture has its own unique forms of dramatic re-creation. When Black Elk, the Lakota medicine man, was young, he had dream that was a visionary message to his people. As was the shamanic custom among his people, Black Elk staged a play. He called the community together and directed the people in acting out his dream in order to bring the power of the vision into the world. It seems that everyone knows that the play is the thing.

Even today in modern U.S. society, drama plays a vital role. While we have an abundance of live theater, perhaps most people are more familiar with the drama in film and television. We have seen how drama can highlight social concerns and can illustrate our hopes and values. A few years back, it was said of the TV drama West Wing, “This is the President we wish we had.”

The Continuing Role for Drama

I think we can still find instruction and catharsis in our modern drama. There is still that hope that through dramatic illustration, we can make a positive change in the world. There remains the idea that if we act out the vision, we can make it a reality. The medium still works for us today. Unfortunately, whereas in the past drama may have been used to illustrate the tragedy of hubris or misplaced honor, today on our TV sets we often use drama to illustrate the tragedy of carrying cash instead of traveler’s checks.

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Let's Be Honest about War

"Guernica" by Pablo Picaso

     "Anyone who advocates for war should 

first take into account what war truly entails"

Amazingly, there are voices in the news media who are once again drumming up a case for U.S. military action in Iraq. Iraq should be “Exhibit A” in the case against war. Military invasion resulted in chaos, the loss of thousands of lives, and the destruction of social infrastructure. At a cost of over 2 trillion dollars and  4,800 American lives (plus hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths), the result is continued misery and increased instability in the Middle East. We as a country were drawn into military conflict on decisions based upon fear. The public was still fearful and uneasy following the 911 attack in 2001, and the politicians who authorized military involvement in Iraq were fearful that they would not get votes back home if they did not go along with the drums of war being sounded by the chief executive. Today, with Iraq once again in turmoil, some are suggesting the need for more military action. Before entering into a new war, we need to be completely honest about all of the details. 

First, we should be clear about why Iraq and the Middle East are “vital to U.S. interests.” It is not a desire to “spread democracy,” it was never about “weapons of mass destruction,” and it is not even about the security of Israel. The reason we have a vital interest in the region is oil, which even President George W. Bush admitted we have an addiction to. Back in 1973 our country experienced an oil crisis. Some astute leaders said that it was time to invest in alternative energy sources. If we had launched such a national effort then, we would not be nearly so concerned about the Middle East region now. There would be little question that they should just work out their differences among themselves – without U.S. interference. There were, in fact, many who questioned invasion of Iraq at the outset, saying back in 2003 that there should be no blood for oil. Almost half the country, in fact, were opposed to entering into war.

Second, and most important, we must be honest about the nature of war. We have a long history of glorifying war and making it seem noble and honorable on national holidays. We look to World War II as the grand example of a justified war. Even with that war to end an evil regime, few people then or now could grasp the true horror that is unleashed in wartime.

Perhaps the two arguments most often heard to justify military action are national security and the just war theory. These arguments overlap, as one could claim both arguments in a situation of national defense. In reading modern justifications for armed conflict, I notice that not many people are referring to the just war theory, but for some it is important to use that concept to measure the need for military action. My own view is that war is never a moral choice and that we must find other means for settling our differences. Too often, the just war theory is simply one more attempt to justify war. If one is to make the argument for war, however, it is crucial to acknowledge the full reality of the nature of war.

Realities of War

On the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, Paul Fussell wrote a piece for The Atlantic Monthly titled, “The Real War.” In that article, Fussell made the case that most Americans have no notion of the true horrors of war. When we were engaged in WWII, reporters had an unwritten understanding that the true nature of war would not be stated for the sake of keeping people back home optimistic as well as for the purpose of not jeopardizing the war effort. Such a widespread lack of understanding about what front line troops were facing, Fussell points out, led to immense cynicism on the part of American military personnel reflected verbally in such acronyms as SNAFU, TARFU, and FUBAR.

No one wrote about conditions on the front line where soldiers had no latrines, lived in filth, saw the internal organs of their buddies scattered about, and faced the growing knowledge that they would likely not make it out alive. Fussell quotes General Eisenhower who wrote a rare explicit passage on the carnage of war in Crusade in Europe, describing the battlefield at the Falaise Pocket: "It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh." Fussell goes on to tell of why the public was so unaware of the realities or WWII:

How is it that these data are commonplaces only to the small number who had some direct experience of them? One reason is the normal human talent for looking on the bright side, for not receiving information likely to cause distress or to occasion a major overhaul of normal ethical, political, or psychological assumptions. But the more important reason is that the news correspondents, radio broadcasters, and film people who perceived these horrors kept quiet about them on behalf of the war effort, and so the large wartime audience never knew these things. As John Steinbeck finally confessed in 1958, "We were all part of the War Effort. We went along with it, and not only that, we abetted it. . . . I don't mean that the correspondents were liars. . . . It is in the things not mentioned that the untruth lies." By not mentioning a lot of things, a correspondent could give the audience at home the impression that there were no cowards in the service, no thieves or rapists or looters, no cruel or stupid commanders. It is true, Steinbeck was aware, that most military operations are examples of "disorganized insanity," but the morale of the home front could not be jeopardized by an eyewitness's saying so. And even if a correspondent wanted to deliver the noisome truth, patriotism would join censorship in stopping his mouth. As Steinbeck noted in Once There Was a War, "The foolish reporter who broke the rules would not be printed at home and in addition would be put out of the theater by the command.”

Anyone who advocates for war should first take into account what war truly entails. “The Real War,” by Paul Fussell is one excellent source, describing conventional war in stark and unromantic terms (that article can be found here). Those religious leaders and politicians who support national military action must make themselves aware of the “disorganized insanity” of battle. They must acknowledge the practices of rape, mayhem, bodily dismemberment, civilian death, and community destruction that are unleashed in wartime. We as a people must acknowledge that many soldiers we send into battle will return badly damaged in body and spirit. They will never overcome the personal horror they witnessed, to which we are blithely oblivious. We as a nation must realize the immense destruction that we leave in our wake when we choose war, as evidenced most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a result of more than a decade at war in the Middle East, we have brought debt to ourselves as well as our children and grandchildren. We have also brought about the destruction of infrastructure and the impossibility of a normal life to hundreds of thousands of people. We have made new enemies and bought at least another generation of ill will. We have forgotten about being a country that welcomes “the tired, the poor and the weary” and have focused on being an empire protecting energy sources. The democracy we pretend to be trying to export is becoming less and less recognizable here at home. In short, our military actions in recent years have brought horror to people abroad and a poverty of national purpose at home. These are only a few reasons why continued military action would be ill advised. The public has little appetite for more war, and if we truly saw the realities of war, most of us would be absolutely repulsed by the notion.

“A Defeat for Humanity”

I cannot get out of my mind the dissonant voices that were heard at the outset of the Iraq War, which was dubbed, “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Pope John Paul II urged restraint from the U.S. stating that war in Iraq would be a defeat for humanity. To me, that was a true prophetic voice from the community of faith, yet there were others from that same community of faith that were easily justifying military action. One example came from George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the official biographer of Pope John Paul II. Weigel wrote editorials stating why war in Iraq was justified. I know that Weigel is an intelligent man and a faithful Catholic, yet on the matter of war, he seemed to bend intellectual theory like a contortionist to make Operation Iraqi Freedom comply with the just war theory. On the one hand, his words sounded clean, antiseptic, intellectual and distant when he argued for military action. On the other hand, I wonder if George Weigel, like many others at the time, was speaking as an American living in fear rather than looking to the standards set by a community of faith. Or perhaps he just put the ideals of empire ahead of the ideals of faith.

The scandal at Abu Ghraib demonstrated how quickly military action can degenerate into unspeakable acts of inhumanity. Any time we advocate for military action, we must be willing to face the harsh realities, the inhumanity, and even the evil that is unleashed in wartime. Perhaps the difference between Pope John Paul II and George Weigel is that the Pope lived through the horrors of war in Poland while in Weigel's case the concept of war is discussed from the halls of academia, far removed from the realities of war. That is the problem that most of us Americans face when war is discussed – we are far removed from the bombing, maiming, and desolation of war.

When Pope John Paul II warned against war in Iraq, he was speaking from a long standing view toward peace. In his message at the celebration of the World Day of Peace in January of 2000, he stated:

The twentieth century bequeaths to us above all else a warning: wars are often the cause of further wars because they fuel deep hatreds, create situations of injustice and trample upon people's dignity and rights. Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore, in addition to causing horrendous damage, they prove ultimately futile. War is a defeat for humanity. Only in peace and through peace can respect for human dignity and its inalienable rights be guaranteed.

My hope is that we may come to realize that peace is gained through peace and that war will always be a defeat for humanity.

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Now They Call Him Blessed

Now They Call Him Blessed  Saint

Note: this essay, as you will see, was written in 2011 after the beatification of Pope John Paul II. It has been getting some views this week in light of his canonization on Sunday, April 27.

Last Sunday, on May 1, the Vatican beatified Pope John Paul II, having placed him on the fast track to sainthood and echoing the shouts of "santo subito" that were heard at the late Pontiff's funeral. It was by all accounts a momentous and festive occasion. (You can read the Associated Press account here.)

The event was not without controversy. Some have questioned the rush to canonize the telegenic and charismatic pope who left his mark as he traveled the world during his long papal reign. The most chilling of the objections is the way the Vatican handled the cases of priests accused of sexual abuse during John Paul's tenure.

I do not agree with everything John Paul II said or did. I didn’t like his rebuke of Ernesto Cardinal or his silencing of liberation theology in Latin America. I did like his rebuke of capitalism in the same breath as his warnings about communism. I loved his stance against capital punishment and his speaking out against the U.S. going to war in Iraq (he said that “war would be a failure of humanity” – and he was right). I did not agree with a lot of his stances that seemed to be coming from an Old World culture. I agreed with his ecumenical spirit as exemplified by his visit to a Jewish synagogue in Rome (against the objection of Cardinal Ratzinger). I disagreed with his traditionalist stance regarding women.

But more than what I agreed with or disagreed with him about, the man made me hopeful. Here is what I wrote about John Paul II back in 2002, a little over a year after my family and I came into the Catholic Church:

On the Holy Father

How well I remember the day back in 1981 when we heard the news that the pope had been shot. I was not a Catholic then, but I was shocked that day. I felt sadness. I also felt fear and dread. I had seen a glimpse of what this pope could do in the face of totalitarianism, materialism, and oppression. The man who had stood in the sunshine and said to us all, “Be not afraid,” had been gunned down. Somehow, I sensed the abundant possibilities of this great man, and the thought of losing him felt like having to start all over. I was a Baptist seminarian in  Mill Valley, California at the time. One of our professors, Dr. William Hendricks, called upon the student body to pray for "our brother in Christ, John Paul II."

Now, as I look back over the twenty-one years since that day, I feel extremely blessed to have had those years living on the same planet as Pope John Paul II. If John XXIII opened a window, John Paul II threw open doors and tore down walls. He has stood in the open air of human dignity and freedom. Even though I may have sensed the possibilities 20 years ago, I could not have imagined what would unfold. He has been the ecumenical pope, a champion of the people, a spiritual advocate for justice, freedom, and peace. I have a brighter outlook on life and a greater hope that the world will work, and even thrive.

It was almost exactly 20 years after that fearful day in 1981 that I came into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Yet even if I had never become Catholic, it would have been enough just to live in the world during the time of Pope John Paul II.

Charles Kinnaird
July, 2002

James Martin, Jesuit priest and a liberal voice wrote about JPII in America  magazine:

“One Vatican official stated recently that Pope Benedict XVI is beatifying his predecessor for who he was as a person, not for what he did during his papacy. In short, he’s not being named a “blessed” for his decisions as pope. This makes sense. Beatification (and later, canonization) does not mean that everything he did as pope is now somehow beyond critique. (Any more than everything St. Thomas More did is beyond critique: Should we believe that heretics should be burned because More has been canonized?) On the other hand, that line of thinking is a little mystifying: for you cannot separate a person’s actions from his personal life.

"But the emphasis on the personal life is an important one. The church beatifies a Christian, not an administrator. In that light, John Paul II clearly deserves to be a blessed and, later, a saint. Karol Wojtyla certainly led a life of “heroic sanctity,” as the traditional phrase has it; he was faithful to God in extreme situations (Nazism, Communism, consumerism); he was a tireless “evangelist,” that is, a promoter of the Gospel, even in the face of severe infirmity; and he worked ardently for the world’s poor, as Jesus asked his followers to do. The new blessed was prayerful, fearless and zealous. He was, in short, holy. And, in my eyes, anyone who visits the prison cell of his would-be assassin and forgives the man is a saint.”

You can read Father Martin’s entire article here.

There is another excellent article in Commonweal on the subject by journalist E.J. Dionne which you can read here.

You may also want to read the following posts on this blog site:

Something Is Happening Here but You Don't Know What It Is

Trending up, or moving backward?

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The Play Is the Thing

There is something about a good drama. Live theater can have a remarkable effect upon members of the audience. The power of drama and its influence was brought home to me recently while watching a film biography of Pope John Paul II. I learned that the young Karol Wojtyla was a member of an underground drama company (called the Rhapsodic Theater) in Poland before he began considering the priesthood. His mentor had been encouraging him toward the priesthood when at one point young Wojtyla realized the he could make a positive change in the world by being a priest. Prior to that point he had been assuming that drama would be the way to effect positive change in his world.

Upon hearing that drama had been Pope John Paul’s first choice for positive change, I tried to imagine what drama must have meant to him and his colleagues living in Poland under Nazi occupation. Immediately I remembered hearing about an acting company in Serajevo during the Bosnian War in Yugoslavia. Even amid the fighting and bombing that completely disrupted that once grand city, the actors were determined to continue, and the people were determined to see that the plays went on. Furthermore, consider Czechoslovakia. When the communist Soviet Bloc fell apart, whom did the Czechoslovakians choose as their first democratically elected president? It was a playwright, Vaclev Havel.

What is it about a play? Why is drama so important? I think that a good play helps us to visualize what life can be like. It is one thing to talk about how things are, or how they could be, but it is another thing to illustrate life with a good drama. For the ancient Greeks, drama was a central act of community religious life. Their plays provided both instruction and catharsis (Now it’s making more sense that a noble young aspiring actor would eventually become Pope).
Drama has a universal appeal. Every culture has its own unique forms of dramatic re-creation. When Black Elk, the Lakota medicine man, was young, he had dream that was a visionary message to his people. As was the shamanic custom among his people, Black Elk staged a play. He called the community together and directed the people in acting out his dream in order to bring the power of the vision into the world. It seems that everyone knows that the play is the thing.

Even today in modern U.S. society, drama plays a vital role. While we have an abundance of live theater, perhaps most people are more familiar with the drama in film and television. We have seen how drama can highlight social concerns and can illustrate our hopes and values. A few years back, it was said of the TV drama West Wing, “This is the President we wish we had.”

I think we can still find instruction and catharsis in our modern drama. There is still that hope that through dramatic illustration, we can make a positive change in the world. There remains the idea that if we act out the vision, we can make it a reality. The medium still works for us today. Unfortunately, whereas in the past drama may have been used to illustrate the tragedy of hubris or misplaced honor, today on our TV sets we often use drama to illustrate the tragedy of carrying cash instead of traveler’s checks.




***