Israel and the
Clown
Thomas B. Woodward
I have
been convinced for a long time that most of our Biblical history is centered in
the comic experience – or more particularly, in the image of the clown (not not
Bozo or Ronald McDonald, more like Emmet Kelly or a stage clown like Avner the
Eccentric or Ken Feit.[1]
The fool. I want to explore that through four overarching themes:the calling of the nation, Israel;the role of Isaiah's image of the suffering servant; the ministry and role of the prophet; and the fool, the church as pied piper.
The fool. I want to explore that through four overarching themes:the calling of the nation, Israel;the role of Isaiah's image of the suffering servant; the ministry and role of the prophet; and the fool, the church as pied piper.
THE CALLING
For me, the two high points of
Jewish Scriptures are the calling of the nation, Israel, and Isaiah's vision of
the nation as suffering servant. Both reflect the clown's experience.
There is
a poem by William Norman Ewer which It begins, "How odd of God to choose
the Jews.” “How odd" and, some would add, how very much in keeping with
the comic or foolish stance of God in dealing with the world, reflected in the wonderful
playfulness in the calling of Israel.
In the
Bible, God does not choose the richest, most educated, or most powerful people to
be His people. God, instead, chooses the smallest and least significant people
to be the people of God. They are not rich, they are not powerful, they are not
distinguished morally or ethically.The choice of the Hebrew slaves was comic -- just as it
was with the apostles - and for you and me.
And Israel's
authority does not depend not on military might, but on her weakness and her
faithfulness to a vision. Reading the Book of Deuteronomy, there is a cyclical
pattern. When the nation is conscious of its comic origins, it flourishes; but
when it begins placing its trust in its own power and strength . . . certain disaster.
That cycle is repeated over and over again. That is called the Deuteronomic
theory of history.[3]
It is
only when Israel takes herself too seriously, when she forgets the high
comedy of her calling that she becomes unfaithful. The experience of grace, for
both Christian and Jew is, at its purest, the experience of incongruity, of
surprise and delight at being chosen, forgiven and redeemed. But, when
that becomes our right, when it is something we own, we are in for big trouble.
Adam, to stretch Biblical language, fell from gravity.
We all fall, says the Bible, though not in so many words,
because of gravity.
We are raised in levity,
levitated into a new dimension. "How odd of God. . . ."
Adam, to stretch Biblical language, fell from gravity.
We all fall, says the Bible, though not in so many words,
because of gravity.
We are raised in levity,
levitated into a new dimension. "How odd of God. . . ."
The comic dimensions of Israel's calling is also reflected
in the underpinnings of her identity.
One of the phrases that echoes throughout the Psalms is the
exhortation to remember that we worship “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob." You've got to love it: Abraham, who lied to protect himself and
his interests, Isaac, born when his parents were in their nineties, who with
tears running down their faces from joy and shock, to celebrate the incongruity
of it all they named him Isaac, which means "Laughter." And then Jacob,
who violated at least nine of the 10 commandments in grand style while stealing
his family blind. "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. . ." or, "The
God of the liar, laughter and the larcenist." How odd of God . . .[4]
SUFFERING SERVANT
On the
other side of Biblical experience, there is Isaiah's great portrayal of the
nation as Suffering Servant. These visions of the Suffering Servant reflect
much more the pathos of the clown than they do the grimness of tragedy -- and
that, I believe, is its peculiar power. Similarly, I am reminded every Holy Week that no one ever pities
Jesus on the Cross. An important element of the Russian tradition, the clown is
"He who gets slapped," the buffoon who absorbs into his or her body
the pain and the hostility of the surrounding world.
As you
read the words of Isaiah 53:2-7, picture Israel, the Holocaust, picture Jesus
on the Cross, picture suffering humanity in any setting. Or picture Emmett
Kelly, the tramp clown as he is buffeted in one after another tragedies.
"Without beauty, without majesty (we saw him),
no looks to attract our eyes;
a thing despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. . .
And yet ours were the sufferings he bore,
ours the sorrows he carried. .
On him lies a punishment that brings us peace,
and through his wounds we are healed. . .
[picture Emmet Kelly, picture a holocaust victim]
Harshly det with, he bore it humbly,
he never opened his mouth,
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter house,
like a sheep that is dumb before its shearers
never opening its mouth."
Isaiah
53:2-7
In my experience, one of the most impressive things done
by a religious group was done by a group of Quakers in New York City.One day in the late 1960's with all the violence
surroundingthe nations' responses to the Viet Nam War,the City's Quaker community heard that there was to be an
ugly confrontation between some angry young protesters and some militaristic construction workers at a building
site.
So the Quakers went, as a group, to the siteand positioned themselves between the two factions as they
converged upon one another.absorbing the hostility and the punishment of both
protesters and hard-hats until,finally, the combatants began to see what was happening. Then
quietly, and somewhat sadly, both sides withdrew – touched deeply by the
holiness of God present in those (how could you say it better?) clowns.
In
response to Isaiah's portrayal of the Suffering Servant and the many instances
of Jesus' embrace and of the poor and the marginalized, Soren wrote in his
diary one of the most ironic lines in all of Christian theology:
"In the splendid Palace Church
a stately court chaplain, the declared favorite of the cultivated public, shows
himself to a select circle of distinguished, cultivated persons and preaches a
moving sermon on this word by the Apostle: 'God chose the lowly and despised.' And nobody laughs."
THE PROPHET
We have the
calling of the nation, the vision and experience of the Suffering Servant/the
Crucified One, and third, the calling of the nation and its people to be
prophets for the world,
to expose and to shame the idols which entrap human lives
and human communities with their
inadequate, false and
blasphemous ways of being in the world. This sacred calling of the nation and
its prophets is not too different from the calling of the clown or fool. The
Fool. The Holy Fool.
Rabbi
Abraham Heschel used to retell an old Hassidic tale as a parable of our
calling:
Once
upon a time there was a small kingdom whose only industry was its
agriculture. Everyone was happy and
everyone had plenty to eat -- until one year, when it was discovered to
everyone's horror, that something terrible had gone wrong with that year's
crops. Something in the crops made whoever ate them crazy -- insane. The
kingdom was soon in an uproar. So the king hurriedly gathered all his wise men
and wise women together and met with them around the clock for several days.
Then he called his kingdom together to announce his decision. "Twelve
people will be set aside," he said.
"The rest of us will eat the crazy-making crop. But all our food in
storage will be set aside for the twelve. They will eat the old crop. The
twelve will serve the very important function of reminding the rest of us that
we are, indeed, crazy."
What a magnificent image of our calling! The ministry of the fool. The fool, stumbling
along, in trouble with the authorities which trouble us all, not quite
understanding the wisdom of the age, always a little out of step – whether by
name of Mother Theresa or Francis of Assisi, Desmond Tutu or Rosa Parks -- ambassadors
of another way, reminding the rest of us that we are, indeed, crazy.
"Blessed are the poor in
spirit," says Jesus.
"Blessed are the meek. . the
merciful. . the thirsty and the hungry. . .
"Blessed are you mourn. . ."
Those are hardly values of this world. If you want to find the Credo of the clown, there is no
better place to look than the Beatitudes or the Magnificat, a world turned
upside down.
As teller
of truth, as mirror (mime) to the people of their sin and their possibilities,
spelling out the bondage and the idolatries of the age, the
similarities between Israel and clown,
between the church and the fool are neither frivolous nor artificial. Both
traditions are grounded in a common frustration with the fallenness of the
world and both understand both the tragic and the absurd in life. Both
understand the reality of a grace and radical acceptance which are not for the
world to give. I'm convinced that the more completely we understand the fool, the
more involved we will be in the meaning and the message of the Bible.
We begin
with the prophets. For the Biblical prophet, for Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and
Jeremiah, there is a fundamental confrontation between a confused and alienated
world – and a vision of a radically different order. The same is true for the clown; though where
the prophet's weapons for the confrontation are his anger, his imagination, and
(for Isaiah, Jeremiah and Hosea) occasional pantomime, the clown uses play, costuming
and a whole range of miming and slapstick to confront the absurdities and
idolatries of the day.
The director for Charlie Chaplain
and the Keystone Cops movies, Max Sennet, had one, and only one basic tenet: "Always
keep the comic on the wrong end of the gun." Just so with God and the
prophets -- both in Biblical times and now.
Isaiah, a
patrician turned prophet, goes through the streets virtually naked in order to
pantomime the distress which is about to overtake the nation. Jeremiah,
learning that the country is soon to be overwhelmed and overrun by conquering Babylonian
forces, on his way out of town absurdly buys a field as his commitment to God's
promise to restore the country's fortunes.
The prophet
Hosea was a marvelous fool. In order to show the nation its own unfaithfulness
towards God, Hosea marries Gomer, the most outrageous prostitute in the country –and remains faithful to her while she continues to ply her
trade. When his friends ask, "Hosea, how on earth could you have married
Gomer -- and then stay faithful to her while she continues to have sex with any
and all available males in the city? How can you deal with that level of
unfaithfulness?" Hosea responds, "How is that different from God's
experience with you?"
Hosea then names his children with names which
reveal the nation's shame. You can see Hosea out with his children waiting for
some super patriot to say, "What lovely children. What are their
names?" just so he could respond, "Well, this one is Internment Camps
and his sister is Ferguson, Missouri and the little guy in the stroller is Abu
Grahib."[5] The Prophet as Clown/Fool
PIED PIPER
Part of being the prophet involves
holding up before us alternative realities, just as our understanding of our
Baptism is that we are already citizens of heaven, already incorporated
into the Kingdom of God - something our coming physical death will not
interrupt. The Credo of the world is "First you live: then you die. The
Credo for the church is "First you die: then you live."[6]
An
Alternative Reality: or, as my friend David Fly observed, "Every Stan
Laurel needs his Oliver Hardy." Not
too long on almost every large college campus across the country there was a
group of films which came back year after year, playing to packed houses. You
can still find them at Netflix. The message in each of these movies is the
same: in this world, it is only the fool who is sane.
Zorba the Greek
A Thousand Clowns
King of Hearts
Harold and Maude
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Whether
it is Murray in "A Thousand Clowns," Alan Bates in "King of
Hearts," Maude in "Harold and Maude," Mac in "One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest" or Zorba the Greek each of these clown/fools has found
himself or herself caught in the midst of a hostile world, somehow out of place
and involved in a constant struggle for emotional, spiritual and physical
survival.
The
message in each of these movies is that always, it seems, the one who appears
the most human, the most humane, discovers himself or herself as the alien, the
intruder -- as out of place. I think of Charlie Brown and Linus in the old
comic strip, Peanuts, two kids,
standing together, pondering the meaning of life. The first to speak is Charlie
Brown:
Charlie Brown: "EARTH!"
Charlie Brown: "I think I can understand your fear of libraries, Linus. 'Library Fever' is
similar to other mental disturbances. You fear the library rooms because
they are strange to you. You are out of place. All of us have certain areas in which we feel out of place."
Linus: "Oh? In what area do you feel out of place, Charlie
Brown?"
Charlie Brown: "EARTH!"
Maybe Charlie Brown is on to something, something that each
of us knows, however dimly --
that maybe it is better to be ill at ease in a world such
as ours, where survival of the fittest so often means survival of the least
human. To be too much at home in this world.is to be in trouble.
As Jesus said, "Foxes have holes, and birds have
their nests, but the [children of God]
have no place to lay their heads."
And there
is the movie of Harold and Maude, a story of the courtship of Harold, a
teenager obsessed with death, and Maude, an irrepressible seventy-nine year
old woman who takes delight in everything, absolutely everything. They have
just met after a funeral Harold has attended out of his morbid obsession with
death. Maude is there because a funeral is just as much a celebration of our
lives as anything else.
Harold walked out of the pew and
the old lady followed.
"What do you think of old
fat Tom?" she asked.
"Who?" said Harold.
"St. Thomas Aquinas up
there. I saw you looking at him."
"I think he's... uh ... a
great thinker."
"Oh, yes. But a little old-fashioned, don't you
think?
Like roast swan. Oh, dear!
Look at her."
They stopped before the dour
portrait of the Madonna.
"May I borrow this?"
the old lady asked,
taking the felt tipped pen from
Harold's coat pocket.
With a few deft strokes she drew
a cheery smile on the Virgin's mouth.
Harold looked about the empty
church to see if anyone was watching.
"There. That's better," said Maude.
"They never give the
poor thing a chance to laugh.
Heaven knows she has a lot to be
happy about.
In fact," she added, looking
at several statues at the back of the church,
"they all have a lot
to be happy about.
Excuse me."
Harold made a halfhearted gesture
for his pen, but to no avail.
The old lady was already in the
back of the church,
drawing smiles on St. Joseph, St.
Anthony, and St. Theresa.
"An unhappy saint is a
contradiction in terms," she explained.
The Clown/Fool as Prophet, as Truth Teller. The Church as
Buffoon, soaking up the world's hostility. And the Church, like Maude, as Pied
Piper, enticing us into deeper and more profound dimensions of reality. So, where
are we in the world? Again, as David
Fly reminds us, every Stan Laurel needs his Oliver Hardy:
There is an old Hassidic saying
which goes: Everyone must have two pockets into which he can reach from time to
time as his need requires. In the one pocket it shall be written: "For my
sake were the heavens and the earth created." And in the other: "I am
but dust and ashes."
One of the chief functions of the comic spirit is to
remind us of "the whole truth."
Whenever we want to become either more or less than ourselves, the task
of the clown/fool is to remind us of just that, the whole truth. In his collection
of fantasy lives of Jesus, A. J. Langguth relates this story:
"At the instant the heavens
parted,the Baptist turned up his face
and absorbed
the words with his whole being."THIS IS MY BELOVED SON-- " the Baptist's
eyes shone with pride --"IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." John dropped
his head with humility and looked for long moments into the depths of the brown
river. This will not do, Jesus thought. Apologetically, he said, "I believe he meant me."
the words with his whole being."THIS IS MY BELOVED SON-- " the Baptist's
eyes shone with pride --"IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." John dropped
his head with humility and looked for long moments into the depths of the brown
river. This will not do, Jesus thought. Apologetically, he said, "I believe he meant me."
In his concern for the whole truth, the clown/fool
chastises us when we reach too high –
and inspires us when we fail to reach at all.
Thus, Anderson and Johnson were
sitting at the local bar, each lost in his own,
private misery. Finally Anderson
heaven an enormous sigh and said, “Things
are so bad. .. so terrible, I
feel like committing suicide." Johnson took a sip of
his beer, sighed his own enormous
sigh and said, "If only I felt that good!"
The whole truth. The concern, always, with the fool is to
return us to our humanness and to the experience of grace and forgiveness. Sometimes
we get lost in our finitude. Other times we get lost in our abstract delusions
of grandeur. Then, when we reach too high or become too arrogant,
the fool's (the church’s) task is to recall us to our finitude
and to the reality of our finite, thingy, particular world. There may be no
better illustration of this than an old Jules Feiffer cartoon of an elderly man
sitting on his front porch in a rocking chair:
"I used to think I was
poor." he says.
"Then they told me I wasn't
poor. I was 'needy.'
"Then they told me it was
self-defeating to think of myself as needy; I was 'deprived.'
"Then they told me
'deprived' was a bad image; I was 'underprivileged.'
"Then they told me
'underprivileged' was overused; I was 'disadvantaged.'
"I still don't have a dime.
"But I have a great
vocabulary."
It may be that only when we come to terms with the most
concrete and persisting realities of our human condition that there is any
decent chance of hope. We begin that, in ourselves and in the world around us,
by paying attention to the whole truth. The tough stuff.
And
paying attention to the other side, the banquet side of life. Again, to use the
words of Rabbi Abraham Heschell: "God has so ordered this world that every
little girl will be a princess and every little boy a prince." Somehow,
you and I, despite all the evidence to the contrary,
must continue to say just that -- in every way we can.
And maybe
the only way we can understand this is through parables, the Magnificat, the
Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount or some means which shows the presence of a
totally other dimension than the pragmatic and the functional and the relevant.
As St. Paul notes, our worldly wisdom tends to do us in. Here is my favorite
illustration of this thing we have called "the whole truth." Langguth
is writing about the boyhood of Jesus -- and his fantasy about Jesus has its own reality in the imago Dei
that is each of us.
“Jesus opened his notebook on the
study hall desk. Using the ruler from
his geometry class, he drew a
ledger's line down the center of one page.
At the top of the left hand
column he wrote ‘ASSETS.’ and over the other,
‘LIABILITIES.’ Under ‘LIABILITIES,’ he printed in block letters,
‘LIABILITIES.’ Under ‘LIABILITIES,’ he printed in block letters,
"IMPATIENT."
Shielding the page from the girl
across the aisle, he added:
DEMANDING
SELF-RIGHTEOUS
PROUD
MOODY
SUSPICIOUS
FILLED WITH DOUBT
TEND TOWARD ARROGANCE.
With some dismay he counted the
entries and began to contemplate
the "ASSETS" column. With
another look to be sure the girl couldn't
see the page, he wrote, "SON
OF GOD."
In better spirits, he closed the
notebook and started on the next day's translation of Cicero.
Despite all our liabilities, confusion and the dailiness
of our lives, we have been chosen for a God who, for some strange reason,
delights in us. It is so important to remember the left hand column. We must never allow that to be taken away
from us - or any of those in our care.
Part of the ministry of the fool (the church and the
synagogue) in this culture is to remind us, always, to contemplate the ASSETS
column.
So how to
sum it all up, put it all together? I think if I had to choose one character
(not from the Bible) as an example of what it means to be a holy fool in the
kind of world we living in, it would be Murray, in Herb Gardner's play, "A
Thousand Clowns." Murray does not sound very religious, but a wise person
would say that he is talking about life as it is given to us and speaking
deeply about the things of the spirit.
Because
Murray has been a pretty unconventional guardian for his young nephew, a social
worker has come to see about taking the boy away. At one point, the social
worker speaks sharply to Murray, saying "Murray, you've got to come back
to reality!" Murray responds, "Well, O.K., but only as a
tourist."[7]
Then Murray talks about the child's future –and in these words about our own vocation as holy
fools:
“And he started to make lists
this year.
Lists of everything: subway
stops, underwear, what he's gonna do next week.
If somebody doesn't watch out
he'll start making lists
of what he's gonna do for the
next ten years.
Hey, suppose they put him in with
a whole family of list-makers?
He'll learn to know everything
before it happens,
he'll learn how to be one of the
nice dead people. .
I just want him to stay with me
till I can be sure he won't turn into Norman Nothing.
I want to be sure he'll know when
he's chickening out on himself.
I want him to get to know exactly
the special thing he is
or else he won't notice it when
it starts to go.
I want him to stay awake and know
who the phonies are.
I want him to know how to holler
and put up an argument,
I want a little guts to show
before I can let him go.
I want to be sure he sees all the
wild possibilities.
I want him to know it's worth all
the trouble
just to give the world a little
goosing when you get the chance.
And I want him to know the
subtle, sneaky, important reason
why he was born a human being and
not a chair.”
That's the crucial thing about living, all of living. Along
with all that troubles or delights us from day to day and all the crises that
befall us it is the reaching for that subtle, sneaky, important reason why we
were born human beings and not chairs that provides the dimension of depth and
of meaning for our lives.
You and I
have been set aside – set aside as religious people – as Episcopalians – to be
a kingdom of fools. Believe me, there is no higher calling. Gabriel Marcel, the
great French philosopher, once said "Life is not a problem to be solved,
but a mystery to be lived." And it is so important that we do not reduce
life to surviving or coping. Survival skills and coping skills and getting
along too often leave us clinging to the surface of life. But there is so much
more: you and I, we have been asked, in a phrase, to eat last year’s grain. And
there is no higher calling.
RESOURCES FOR
BIBLICAL HUMOR
"The Prostitute in the
Family Tree" by Doug Adams goes into detail about many of the comic
elements of Scripture. One of the highlights of the book is Doug's hilarious use
of the Geneology of Jesus - suitable
for Advent sermons. Doug was a faculty member at the Graduate Theological Union,
specializing in Scriptural Studies and Religious Art.
"Kerygma and
Comedy in the New Testament: A Structuralist Approach to Hermeneutic"
by New Testament scholar Dan Via is a difficult read, but an important element
in contemporary Biblical scholarship.
"The Parables
of Jesus from the Inside," in Volume 47:1 of the Sewanee Theological
Review is my own contribution to the study of the parables, based in part on
the work of Walter Wink and Carl Jung. My approach, using a dramatic approach
to the parables, rich in comedic insight, in interactions with a congregation
or other group allows participants to find themselves within several key
parables of Jesus. A copy is in the St. Bede's library.
"Tellling the Truth: The Gospel as Comedy, Tragedy, and Fairy Tale"
by Frederic Buechner has an engaging reflection on the comedic structure and
experience of the Gospels.
APPENDIX
You can find several videos of Avner the Eccentric on youtube. I believe he is the best stage clown around. You will not regret the time you spend watching these
videos. In my glory days, Avner and I taught together - and each time after watching him
perform, my stomach ached from laughing. His stage show is on two youtube videos:
https://youtu.be/kguuPM5IPw0 and
https://youtu.be/ilozJFAIIGE
Ken Feit is much better in person than on a video, though
I just found John Towson's site which has most of a long lost film about Ken's
performances (the other part of the film is dedicated to the Jesuit ministry of
Nick Webber's Royal Lichtenstein One-Quarter Ring Circus which played mostly on
college campuses and in the middle of large ghettos. You can search for his
videos on your own. Here is Ken Feit: http://physicalcomedy.blogspot.com/2012/10/film-ken-feit-in-performance.html
Here is Ken Feit, the storyteller, as Prophet, with his story of Cleo, the pregnant woman who is also the Muse of history and here as a poor Apalachian woman:
Cleo has gone to a fortune teller because she is worried about the baby she is carrying:
-- Fortune-teller lady, I got me a problem.
* The problem in your belly, Cleo?
-- That's right, fortune-teller lady. That's where it is. Can ya help me? Sometimes I lay on my back, I feel a kickin' in my belly. Sometimes I close my eyes, I feel a pain in my head.
* Well. This sounds serious. Set yourself down. I'll check ya over.
....
*Cleo, your baby is something else!
-- I know that fortune-teller lady.
* I mean it is somethin "else" else!
-- Whatcha mean?
* I mean this here baby's gonna be strong.
-- Stronger than Rome?
* That's right! This here baby gonna be rich!
-- Richer than Egypt?
* Uh-huh. This here baby gonna travel a lot!
-- More than England?
* That's right!
-- Well, that's wonderful, fortuneteller lady. I'm much obliged for what you tell me.
* Not so fast, Cleo. You didn't let me finish.
-- Whatcha got to say?
* Just this. Your baby gonna be strong but gonna beat up on the babies it don't like.
-- No!
* Yeah-us. Your baby gonna be rich and have lots of food, but keep it for its own mouth.
-- No!
* Yeah-us. Your baby gonna travel lots. But its eyes gonna be mostly closed.
. . .
-- Tell me, fortune-teller lady, ain't der a goodness in my baby?
* There's a goodness. Your baby's a good baby, but it got a streak of meanness too.
...
-- What name should I give my baby? Huh?
* Call your baby, call your baby ... Cleo, call your baby -- America!
-- America?
* America!
__ I never heard that name before.
* I just made it up.
-- But why America?
* On account of it's genuine kind - and that's Amer. But it's mean to. And that's Ca!
-- Can't I just call my baby, Amer?
* You forget the Ca, and you get a kick in the teeth from your own baby. You understand?
...
And then Cleo wrestles with the thought: shall she keep this baby who will be full of kindness and generosity or what happens when her baby hurts and maybe kills some of her other babies?
This is an adaptation from Joe Martin's collection of stories and reflections of Ken in the book "Foolish Wisdom."
Here is Ken Feit, the storyteller, as Prophet, with his story of Cleo, the pregnant woman who is also the Muse of history and here as a poor Apalachian woman:
Cleo has gone to a fortune teller because she is worried about the baby she is carrying:
-- Fortune-teller lady, I got me a problem.
* The problem in your belly, Cleo?
-- That's right, fortune-teller lady. That's where it is. Can ya help me? Sometimes I lay on my back, I feel a kickin' in my belly. Sometimes I close my eyes, I feel a pain in my head.
* Well. This sounds serious. Set yourself down. I'll check ya over.
....
*Cleo, your baby is something else!
-- I know that fortune-teller lady.
* I mean it is somethin "else" else!
-- Whatcha mean?
* I mean this here baby's gonna be strong.
-- Stronger than Rome?
* That's right! This here baby gonna be rich!
-- Richer than Egypt?
* Uh-huh. This here baby gonna travel a lot!
-- More than England?
* That's right!
-- Well, that's wonderful, fortuneteller lady. I'm much obliged for what you tell me.
* Not so fast, Cleo. You didn't let me finish.
-- Whatcha got to say?
* Just this. Your baby gonna be strong but gonna beat up on the babies it don't like.
-- No!
* Yeah-us. Your baby gonna be rich and have lots of food, but keep it for its own mouth.
-- No!
* Yeah-us. Your baby gonna travel lots. But its eyes gonna be mostly closed.
. . .
-- Tell me, fortune-teller lady, ain't der a goodness in my baby?
* There's a goodness. Your baby's a good baby, but it got a streak of meanness too.
...
-- What name should I give my baby? Huh?
* Call your baby, call your baby ... Cleo, call your baby -- America!
-- America?
* America!
__ I never heard that name before.
* I just made it up.
-- But why America?
* On account of it's genuine kind - and that's Amer. But it's mean to. And that's Ca!
-- Can't I just call my baby, Amer?
* You forget the Ca, and you get a kick in the teeth from your own baby. You understand?
...
And then Cleo wrestles with the thought: shall she keep this baby who will be full of kindness and generosity or what happens when her baby hurts and maybe kills some of her other babies?
This is an adaptation from Joe Martin's collection of stories and reflections of Ken in the book "Foolish Wisdom."
Ed
Stivender's Nyah-Nyah Geschichte
One of my favorite storytellers is Ed Stivender, whose work almost always focuses on religious religious themes. He has one of the most creative theological minds in the country and often introduces himself,
One of my favorite storytellers is Ed Stivender, whose work almost always focuses on religious religious themes. He has one of the most creative theological minds in the country and often introduces himself,
One of my favorite storytellers is Ed Stivender, one of the most creative theological minds in the country. Here is how he often introduces himself:
The same theme echoes through event after event throughout
Jewish and Christian scriptures -- with the Exodus, with various rescues of the
young nation, with the return of the people from Babylonian captivity, and
supremely with the resurrection of Jesus.
"Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah-Nyah!
Evil thought it had won! Nyah,
Nyah, Nyah, Nyah-Nyah!" Not a bad
image.
[1]
See appendix for a videos and stories of Avner and Ken.
[3]
You can check it out in Judges, I-II Samuel, I&II Kings, and Chronicles.
[4]
This illustration comes from Doug Adams, author of "The Prostitute in the
Family Tree."
[5]
For a similar perspective, read in the Appendix Ken Feit's performance piece on
Cleo, the Muse of History, visiting a fortune teller for advice on whether or
not to abort her new nation about to be born.
[6]
My first 15 Minute Play is an illustration of ths Credo. You can see it at:
https://youtu.be/UGLAgnrFFB.
[7]
When I was presenting an earlier version of this piece, a middle aged man at
the rear of the lecture hall became very disturbed. When I asked him if he had
something to share, he said, "I teach drama at Kent State University and
one year we were in rehearsals for "A Thousand Clowns," when the
National Guard killed four of our students and the university shut down. When
the university resumed the semester, we decided to go ahead with the play. On
opening night, when we came to the line 'but only as a tourist,' the place
erupted with cheers, tears and applause lasting over five minutes."
[1][8][]From
lecture notes.
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