Integrity and St. Thomas More - A Man For All Seasons

After finishing an essay last night, I picked up a book my mom gave me to read. It was a play by Robert Bolt called "A Man For All Seasons" and tells the story of Sir/St. Thomas More, Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor who remained a devout Catholic and refused to take the Act of Supremacy (http://www.britainexpress.com/History/tudor/supremacy-henry-text.htm). The oath means admitting that Henry's marriage to Anne Bolynne is valid and that Henry is the Supreme Head of the Church in England. More refuses because the Pope and Christian law state the contrary ('what God has brought together let no man separate', etc).

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The whole theme of the play was "everyone has a price" and you gradually see every character get bought off into either submitting to the king and saying the oath, while not really believing it, or betraying their friends for money. In the end the story revolves around Thomas who refuses to say anything at all about the marriage or the Church of England and uses his silence as his legal defence.

It's interesting that the play mentions how even though More is silent, his morality and firm conviction and refusal to sell out, actually bring pain to King Henry VIII and he orders him to be dragged to the tower until he officially committs treason. But More is a master of English law and gets out of it every time until finally with no evidence, they have a trial and sentence him to execution anyway. His own friends who he was helping out in the beginning of the play end up being those who witness against him and sentence him to death. It's interesting in the end because Thomas was so committed to following his conscience that everyone thought he was a fool and should just give in. At one point, his friend the Duke of Norfolk, shows up and displays a list of all his friends and everyone in England who've all signed the Act of Supremacy and Norfolk urges him to sign it, and I love how More responds:

Norfolk: I don't know whether the marriage was lawful or not. But damn it, Thomas look at those names... You know those men! Can't you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?

More (moved): And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?

Cranmer: So those of us whose names are there are damned, Sir Thomas?

More: I don't know, Your Grace. I have no window to look into another man's conscience. I condemn no one

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I like that More doesn't even play the saintly moral high ground card here, he just says that he refuses to go against his conscience. He says later when his daughter asks why he stays in the Tower of London (jail) instead of just mindlessly signing the Act of Supremacy and coming home. She doesn't understand why he must suffer to be a hero. More responds:

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"If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly, And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all...why then perhaps we must stand fast a little - even at the risk of being heroes" (p 84)

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In the end of his trial, once he knows it's been rigged, Sir Thomas says:

"What you have hunted me for is not my actions, but the thoughts of my heart. It is a long road you have opened. For first men will disclaim their hearts and presently they will have no hearts. God help the people whose Statesmen walk your road" (p 95)

The movie V for Vendetta describes Integrity as that last inch which no one can take from you. Even though the play isn't literally true, the events are and I hope that I might one day have the conscience and integrity that St. Thomas More had.

I wrote to a friend the other day "I would pray that God lets you know what's right, in my case my conscience has always been clear, I've never had to pray to know right from wrong, I've only had to pray for the grace to do what is right, and rarely have I chosen it". I think the conscience is an immense gift from God and I need to rule myself more by it than I do currently.

For the scene from the Tudors see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP-DYiJfw6g&feature=related

Gratitude and Worry

Today was supposed to be a day of work, I'd spent Monday as a day of work, but Tuesday is normally my day of rest, my sabbath if you will. But tomorrow (starting in 40min/Wednesday) I have 2 mid-terms which I've studied for an incomplete manner. I've not read all I had to read, and am relying on my memory from lectures alot. I should've studied more, but I didn't and it's almost midnight. I have an essay due friday morning that I was supposed to write most of today...I didn't. I read the sources and wrote 1 of 7 pages. My mid-terms are worth about 20% a piece so they are quite serious, and my essay is a quarter of my mark, and is likewise serious. So academically, in the traditional sense of the word, today was a faillure, and I could suffer greatly tomorrow for today's laxity.

But if I'm honest with myself, I'm not actually worried. Rather, I'm a little worried, but my worry is overwhelmed by gratitude. I'm so grateful today to be alive, indeed now it seems that excepting my occasional overwhelming moments of hatred and despair, the grand theme of my life is gratitude. I got to sleep in today, I went for a run, I got to eat, and read cartoons and watch a bit of a movie I love and rest. Sure my back hurts tremendously as I lay here (I pulled something running), and I'm a bit nervous about tomorrow, but other than those fleeting pains, I am still feeling good. I read today about life in Mississippi in 1964, and about how when blacks went to register to vote they were usually beaten and then charged with disturbing the peace for screaming (I wish I was joking or exaggerating). One black man holding a peaceful protest got shot dead on the lawn infront of the city courthouse by a member of the State Legislature, and no charges were brought against him (and even though no charges were brought against him, the State declared he was acting in clear self-defence). .... my life will never approach that horrible (God willing), and this is today's lesson from history. The lesson that justice and rights are not a given, but that I've been blessed to be in the top 5% of humanity. So I think of the love of God and get on my knees before I go to bed, I cross myself, and thank God for all of his graces. Because above the worries that will bother me day in and day out until I finally breathe my last, I think I should be grateful, rather than troubled.

Dreams

There's a line in a movie I love that's "let them rest, for in dreams we enter a world entirely our own, let them climb the highest mountain and swim in the deepest ocean" (HP:POA). An apologist once said to me the in the post-modern era man is not content to survive in or conquer the world, but wishes to create a world of his own. I think dreams are a perfect anti-thesis to that statement. From the beginning men have dwelt in the world of their own dreams, and I'm assuming some people have more meaningful dreams than I do (they usually either don't make sense, or terrible things happen in them). I love the story of Joseph and how he interprets dreams to see God's will. In our modern world it would be like reading Tarot cards for Jesus. Absolutely ridiculous and offensive to the standards of today.

Sharks sleep one half of their brain at a time and so they never stop going . .. . I wish I could rest both of my brains, but it's interesting that when we sleep we are sub-conscious, we are actually not there. Though I've insulted people in my sleep and responded to the question "Andrew are you asleep?" with "Yes and I'm arguing with you in a sub-conscious state!(sarcasm)" Am I morally culpable for that? I hope not, but people still blamed me. It's like when I made anti-semetic remarks in my sleep and Lance slept outside our room... craziness. Maybe everyone else is dreaming of wondrous fantasy lands while my dreams are anti-semetic, insane, and horrifying visions. It reminds me of Hamlets Act 3 soliloquay "To die, to sleep, aye theres the rub, for in that sleep, what dreams may come?" (I did that from memory at 2am - hurray). I have the terrible Hamlet dreams.

Maybe thats because I have awesome day dreams. Today I had a great one that was set in Australia...but thats another story. Pleasanter dreams than my normal fare I wish you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9AE8QQfx_E

Guernica: Picasso and the Spanish Civil War

So I watched something on the history channel a while back about famous bombings where many civilians were killed, and alot of it horrified me. There was one bombing in the Spanish civil war that was terrible. Thousands were killed and even in the rubble they were bombed. I just found out Pablo Picasso painted a work called "Guernica" (which I think was the city's name) about this event and I think it's interesting how for the first time in my life, I've actually understood a painting from the modern period. I think it's a landmark event, and that I only understood it because of that history channel program that was about it which I saw first. I'm an auditory learner.

Things I really want to do today but won't be able to

I've been wanting to update this blog more frequently but I don't ever seem to have anything insightful or funny to say, so i'd try this. In History we have to examine lists of all the crap people owned and then tell about their life. So if historians of the '2008-(whenever it ends) Depression' they might use this for kids to be forced to read. Plus I just feel better about myself if I blog, because then if I die today at least I know that my thoughts were out there to annoy everyone.

Read or Watch Distopian themed things:
1. Finish reading Orwell's 1984 - everyone keeps reminding me about this classic that I got for my birthday which I really need to read, but am only on like pg 35 or something. The guy is fixing a sink.
2. Start reading Huxley's 'A Brave New World' - my mom gave me a copy of it last week - she had to read in college and was cleaning up and thought I'd like it.
3. Re-watch Logan's Run - I haven't watched that movie in a long time.

Exercise and Meditate (in the Christian and/or Hindu sense not the Neo-spiritual New age way)
1. so I really love the forest, if I was a pagan I'd probably worship the god or goddess of the forest, but fortunately my ancestors killed all of those people so I don't have to do that. But I'd like to go on a walk in the woods and just think about life, and realize that it's so much bigger than me, and that I am a tiny speck in the Universe, and yet am the recipient of divine Caritas(latin word for love/charity - a merging of Agape and Eros)
2. Read some Carl Jung. He's a swiss psychologist who was not a Christian but more of a Hindu living in a Christian world (a bit like Ghandi?) and I was just reading a summary of his ideas the other day and about how we might all be like islands thinking we are all unconnected but really under the surface we are. some atman-y word or something from Hinduism (my favourite wrong religion). I'd also like to read his commentaries on Christ's life or Revelation, or read about how he talks about the power of symbols. I've become a firm believer that symbols are VERY important and that they give people meaning (the cross or the trinity for me).
3. Go for a run and instantly feel like I'm being proactive in delaying my inevitable death.

Friends or Family
1. More than anything on this list, I would love to hang out with my brothers today, I miss them alot, and I think if I found out that this afternoon I would be chilling with Jer in Smithers, BC, or that the three of us were gonna play Goldeneye, I think if I knew that, my life would be radically happier.
2. I always enjoy a friday night with Dan, Kish, Steve, Roberts, Rowan, James, or others and just kick back and watch some crap movie and drink some vodka. That'd be entertaining as well.

Marriage

As a kid and a teenager I always assumed I'd get married, but in the last year I've actually for the first time thought about the probability that I will be single or celibate. I have to say that marriage doesn't seem as amazing in many ways as it used to. Everytime I thought about marriage in the past the selling points were always 'sex' and 'someone either bringing in money or taking care of your stuff'. Now it's just amazing to think of someone actually sticking around with you for your whole life. If anyone was ever stupid or crazy enough to want to marry me, I'd know they were probably the wrong person.

When you get married to someone it's not like things necessarily get better, you get all their baggage, they get all your baggage, and you're both weighed down with each other's problems, but you also get each other's strengths. I was thinking about this today when my friend Jewey was describing how to stack up World of Warcraft Arena teams and how you want to usually have a Tank and a Healer, or a DPS and a hybrid healer. It's strange to think about marriage as an arena team. I think that so many marriages fail because people marry someone exactly like themselves... and unless they're both shamans or paladins, it's not going to work.

Yep, that's Holy Matrimony in the land of Azeroth and real life.