Stuart C. Henry - "Of Madness and Man and La Mancha" (April 27, 1969)
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| (whistling) | 0:11 | |
| (sacred organ music) | 0:52 | |
| (choir singing faintly) | 2:56 | |
| - | Let us offer onto God our unison prayer of confession, | 5:09 |
| and for pardon, let us pray. | 5:15 | |
| Oh most merciful Father | 5:20 | |
| who willis, not the death of any sinner, | 5:23 | |
| but rather that he should return unto thee and be saved. | 5:27 | |
| Comfort us who are grieved by the weight of our sins. | 5:32 | |
| We confess to thee | 5:37 | |
| that we have been slow to believe the good news | 5:39 | |
| made known in Jesus Christ. | 5:42 | |
| We confess that like the disciples of old, | 5:45 | |
| we have not expected great things to happen to us. | 5:49 | |
| We have doubted the power of Christ's resurrection | 5:54 | |
| in our lives. | 5:57 | |
| Forgive us for believing that the triumph of right | 5:59 | |
| is too good to be true. | 6:03 | |
| Restore us through thy pardoning grace, | 6:06 | |
| to what childlike faith. | 6:09 | |
| We pray in Jesus name. | 6:12 | |
| Amen. | 6:15 | |
| Now hear these words of assurance, of pardon. | 6:18 | |
| As the heaven is high above the earth, | 6:25 | |
| so great is God's mercy, toward them that fear him. | 6:29 | |
| Like as a father pity at his children, | 6:36 | |
| so the Lord pity them that fear him. | 6:41 | |
| If we confess our sins, | 6:46 | |
| He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, | 6:50 | |
| and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. | 6:57 | |
| As far as the east is from the west, | 7:02 | |
| so far has God removed our transgressions from us. | 7:06 | |
| Therefore, be of good courage. | 7:14 | |
| (choir singing faintly) | 8:19 | |
| There is one announcement | 10:40 | |
| that I would like to draw the attention | 10:42 | |
| of our radio congregation to. | 10:44 | |
| The second announcement in our order of worship. | 10:47 | |
| This afternoon at 02:30, | 10:52 | |
| the Mary Duke Biddle Memorial organ | 10:57 | |
| will be dedicated here in the chapel to our right. | 11:01 | |
| The dedication recital | 11:08 | |
| will be played by Mr. E. Power Biggs, | 11:11 | |
| who is one of America's most celebrated organists, | 11:15 | |
| and the public is cordially invited to attend. | 11:19 | |
| And I am happy also to inform you all that | 11:25 | |
| Mr. Walter Holtcamp, | 11:28 | |
| who built the organ, is worshiping with us, | 11:31 | |
| at this service. | 11:35 | |
| The lector at this service | 11:37 | |
| is the chaplain to the university. | 11:40 | |
| - | Let us hear the reading of a portion of scripture. | 11:48 |
| This being the first of 13 verses | 11:51 | |
| of chapter nine of the gospel, according to Saint Matthew, | 11:54 | |
| "Jesus went on board a ship and passed over | 11:58 | |
| and came into his hometown. | 12:02 | |
| Immediately, some people brought to him a paralyzed man, | 12:05 | |
| lying on a sleeping pad. | 12:08 | |
| And because Jesus saw the faith of the bearers, | 12:11 | |
| he said under the paralytic, | 12:14 | |
| 'Son be of good cheer, your sins are pardoned.' | 12:16 | |
| Where upon certain teachers of the law said to themselves, | 12:21 | |
| 'This man speaks profanely.' | 12:25 | |
| Jesus read their inward thoughts and said, | 12:30 | |
| 'Why must you have such evil thoughts in your minds? | 12:34 | |
| Which is easier to say, | 12:38 | |
| your sins are pardoned | 12:40 | |
| or to say arise and walk?' | 12:43 | |
| But to make it quite plain | 12:47 | |
| that the son of man has authority on earth to pardon sins. | 12:48 | |
| He then said to the paralyzed man, | 12:53 | |
| 'Get up, take up your sleeping pad and return to your home.' | 12:55 | |
| The man sprang to his feet and went to his home. | 13:02 | |
| When the crowd saw this, they were awestruck | 13:06 | |
| and described the glory to God for giving such power to men. | 13:09 | |
| And as Jesus went along, | 13:16 | |
| he saw a man named Matthew presiding over the tax office. | 13:18 | |
| Jesus said unto him, 'Follow me.' | 13:22 | |
| And he arose and followed Him. | 13:26 | |
| Later on as Jesus was in the house | 13:29 | |
| sitting at the dinner table, | 13:32 | |
| many tax collectors and other disreputable people | 13:34 | |
| came and sat down with Him and His disciples. | 13:37 | |
| The Pharisees noticed this | 13:41 | |
| and they began to say unto his disciples, | 13:43 | |
| 'Why does your teacher eat | 13:47 | |
| in the company of tax gatherers and outcasts?' | 13:48 | |
| Jesus overheard the remark and replied, | 13:53 | |
| 'It is not men in good health who require a doctor, | 13:57 | |
| but they who are sick.'" | 14:02 | |
| Suppose you go away | 14:04 | |
| and learn the meaning of Hosea 6:6 | 14:06 | |
| "I like mercy and not mere sacrifice" | 14:11 | |
| "For I did not come to invite the pious, | 14:17 | |
| but the outcast to repentance." | 14:20 | |
| Amen. | 14:24 | |
| (sacred organ music playing) | 14:26 | |
| ♪ Glory be to the Father ♪ | 14:33 | |
| ♪ And to the son ♪ | 14:37 | |
| ♪ And to the Holy Spirit ♪ | 14:40 | |
| (choir singing faintly) | 14:44 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 15:16 | |
| Congregation | And (indistinct) | 15:19 |
| - | Let us pray. | 15:20 |
| Let us offer first a Prayer of Thanksgiving, | 15:27 | |
| for the joy which is born of sympathy and sorrow, | 15:32 | |
| for the joy of the lost soul finding love again, | 15:37 | |
| and for the joy of the angels over one sinner that repented. | 15:43 | |
| Glory be to thee, O Lord. | 15:49 | |
| For all pure comedy and laughter | 15:54 | |
| and for the gift of humor and gaiety of heart, | 15:57 | |
| glory be to thee O Lord. | 16:01 | |
| For all who have consecrated (indistinct) | 16:05 | |
| with the love of Christ, | 16:07 | |
| glory be to thee, O Lord. | 16:11 | |
| For all singers and musicians, | 16:15 | |
| for all who work and farm | 16:19 | |
| and color to increase the joy of life, | 16:22 | |
| glory be to thee O Lord. | 16:26 | |
| For poets and craftsman, | 16:29 | |
| for all who rejoice in that and make things well. | 16:33 | |
| Glory be to thee O Lord. | 16:39 | |
| For all who have loved the common people | 16:42 | |
| and born their sorrows in their hearts, | 16:44 | |
| glory be to the O Lord. | 16:49 | |
| For profits and reformers, | 16:52 | |
| who cry shame on all social wrong | 16:56 | |
| and point the way to fare a life for all the people, | 16:58 | |
| glory be to thee O Lord Most High. | 17:03 | |
| And a prayer of intercession. | 17:11 | |
| We bring before thee O God the troubles | 17:14 | |
| and pedals of peoples and nations, | 17:17 | |
| the sighing of prisoners and captives, | 17:21 | |
| the sorrows of the bereaved, | 17:26 | |
| the necessities of strangers, | 17:30 | |
| the helplessness of the weak, | 17:34 | |
| the despondency of the weary, | 17:37 | |
| the failing powers of the aging. | 17:41 | |
| O God drawn near to each, | 17:45 | |
| for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 17:49 | |
| And a prayer of supplication. | 17:55 | |
| O thou and who's boundless being laid up | 18:00 | |
| all treasures of wisdom, truth and holiness, | 18:02 | |
| grant us through constant fellowship with thee | 18:07 | |
| the true graces of Christian character, | 18:10 | |
| the grace of courage, | 18:16 | |
| whether in suffering or in danger, | 18:19 | |
| the grace of preparedness, | 18:23 | |
| lest we enter into temptation. | 18:26 | |
| The grace to treat others as we would have others treat us. | 18:30 | |
| The grace of charity, | 18:38 | |
| that we may refrain from hasty judgment, | 18:42 | |
| the grace of silence, | 18:47 | |
| that we may refrain from hasty speech, | 18:50 | |
| the grace of forgiveness towards all who have wronged us, | 18:55 | |
| the grace of tenderness towards all who are weaker, | 19:00 | |
| and the grace of steadfastness | 19:08 | |
| in continuing to desire, | 19:12 | |
| that thou will do as now we pray. | 19:15 | |
| And as our savior Christ has taught us, | 19:23 | |
| we humbly pray together saying, | 19:26 | |
| our father who art in heaven, | 19:30 | |
| hallowed be thy name, | 19:34 | |
| thy kingdom come, | 19:36 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 19:38 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 19:43 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 19:46 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us, | 19:49 | |
| and lead us not into temptation, | 19:53 | |
| but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom | 19:55 | |
| and the power and the glory forever. | 19:59 | |
| Amen. | 20:04 | |
| - | In the name of the Father and of the Son | 20:38 |
| and of the Holy Spirit. | 20:42 | |
| Amen. | 20:44 | |
| Taken all together, | 20:52 | |
| it was an unlikely setting of what happened, | 20:55 | |
| for 15th century Spain was no place to look for inspiration. | 21:00 | |
| In the closing years of the century, | 21:06 | |
| a group of foolhardy sailors | 21:10 | |
| with outrageous confidence | 21:12 | |
| and a magnetized needle floating in a bowl of water, | 21:14 | |
| had sailed to the west, | 21:18 | |
| and had returned with maps of Africa and the Americas. | 21:21 | |
| Almost overnight, the world doubled in its size. | 21:27 | |
| And if there was now twice as much treasure | 21:32 | |
| for the greedy and the bold, | 21:34 | |
| there was also twice as much danger about. | 21:37 | |
| For it was not long before that a curious German | 21:42 | |
| had discovered a combination, | 21:45 | |
| that would blow the roof from his laboratory | 21:49 | |
| or the head from his enemy. | 21:54 | |
| And it was not alone the physical world that was threatened | 21:57 | |
| and simply in matters of fair fields and firearms, | 22:00 | |
| because thanks to the invention of moveable type, | 22:07 | |
| Western man was now being flooded | 22:11 | |
| with wave after wave of printed books, | 22:14 | |
| inundating him with new notions that washed away | 22:17 | |
| at the old structures and the older ideas. | 22:22 | |
| There was no stability without, | 22:28 | |
| and there was no tranquility within, | 22:30 | |
| nor was that the worst. | 22:33 | |
| For while the explorers | 22:36 | |
| whatever pushing further and further, | 22:37 | |
| trying to unloose the very bounds of the ocean. | 22:40 | |
| And while the scholars were insistently asking that | 22:43 | |
| unanswered and unanswerable question, why, why, why? | 22:46 | |
| inquisitors under royal mandate, | 22:52 | |
| what probing into the darkest corners of men's minds | 22:55 | |
| and searching out the secret shadows of their homes, | 23:00 | |
| looking for heresy, testing for faith. | 23:04 | |
| So that sanity was remote from man's life, | 23:09 | |
| nightmare in darkness and terror by day, | 23:13 | |
| this is the way it was, | 23:17 | |
| with a man unwilling, | 23:19 | |
| even in the secrecy of his own family | 23:21 | |
| to speak his inmost thoughts. | 23:24 | |
| It was a mad world | 23:28 | |
| or more accurately it was a world of men driven to madness. | 23:30 | |
| And especially did the situation seems so | 23:37 | |
| to one Cervantes, | 23:39 | |
| who sat down to consider the matter | 23:42 | |
| and wrote his letter to the world, | 23:46 | |
| in the form of the life | 23:49 | |
| and adventures of Don Quixote of La Mancha, | 23:51 | |
| for the villages are these own region of La Mancha | 23:57 | |
| were no safer than the grand cities of Castillo. | 24:00 | |
| Nothing was stranger about this word to his generation | 24:06 | |
| than the enthusiasm with which it was received. | 24:11 | |
| Then, and later. | 24:15 | |
| Some 400 years after the time of Cervantes, | 24:18 | |
| New York was treated to a play with music | 24:22 | |
| called "The Man of La Mancha". | 24:26 | |
| It was a skill for blending, | 24:29 | |
| of the life and the career of Cervantes | 24:32 | |
| and of Don Quixote, the foolish knight who they invented. | 24:36 | |
| It was a play about compassion and pity | 24:41 | |
| and honor and virtue, | 24:47 | |
| and self-sacrifice, | 24:50 | |
| and New Yorkers loved it. | 24:53 | |
| Instead of turning their backs upon this play, | 24:56 | |
| the men of Gotham embraced it and held it tightly | 25:00 | |
| and they have done so ever since. | 25:05 | |
| Presented originally, modestly in an off-Broadway house, | 25:08 | |
| which means in relatively small and inadequate quarters, | 25:13 | |
| and as cheaply as possible, | 25:17 | |
| it was forced by public demand | 25:19 | |
| to move to a large metropolitan theater. | 25:21 | |
| And there, it has continued for years | 25:25 | |
| to play to standing room only. | 25:28 | |
| Surrounded by other productions that come and go | 25:32 | |
| in which the players sometimes confused art with the ability | 25:36 | |
| or rather the willingness, | 25:42 | |
| to act condescending and to speak dirt. | 25:44 | |
| This play continues to present itself | 25:48 | |
| to houses that are filled, night after night. | 25:51 | |
| And the houses aren't just filled | 25:56 | |
| with the matrons from Upper Montclair, | 25:58 | |
| or with children and company with their nannies. | 26:02 | |
| The houses are filled if one may judge, | 26:05 | |
| by the fetishes, | 26:09 | |
| and the dress of those who sit about him when he goes, | 26:11 | |
| the houses are filled with the blithe and the spirited, | 26:15 | |
| with the beautiful and the young. | 26:19 | |
| Surely there is a sermon here, could we but discover it? | 26:23 | |
| So let us try, | 26:27 | |
| and let us begin with the man, Cervantes. | 26:29 | |
| But his story is no chronicle of success, | 26:33 | |
| rather it is a catalog of catastrophe. | 26:37 | |
| The grotesque failure in an unsympathetic world | 26:41 | |
| where he was forced to live, | 26:44 | |
| begins with his birth and continues as his family moves | 26:47 | |
| from city to city throughout Central Spain. | 26:51 | |
| While he is still a young man, | 26:55 | |
| he enlisted in the army as a common soldier, | 26:57 | |
| and for his trouble, | 27:01 | |
| he loses the use of his left hand in a Mediterranean battle. | 27:01 | |
| Subsequently attempting to sail back to his native Spain, | 27:07 | |
| he is captured by barbaric pirates. | 27:11 | |
| And for five years he was a slave in Algiers. | 27:14 | |
| Ransom comes but tardily, | 27:19 | |
| and thereafter through the rest of his life, | 27:22 | |
| Cervantes is in and out of prison | 27:26 | |
| as he is in and out of debt, | 27:29 | |
| and in and out of favor with the inquisition. | 27:32 | |
| And yet the spirit which informs his word to the generation | 27:37 | |
| is broader than the bitterness of any one man could ever be. | 27:43 | |
| It's deeper than the despair that would ever be allowed | 27:48 | |
| to a single individual. | 27:51 | |
| Consider if you will, a question that he raises, | 27:55 | |
| not for himself, but for the whole mad world | 27:59 | |
| and for all the people who are trapped within it. | 28:05 | |
| He is speaking in the play, | 28:10 | |
| he is awaiting the hooded inquisitors of rat and state, | 28:12 | |
| and he is jailed with less rather than more justice, | 28:17 | |
| but he speaks. | 28:21 | |
| "I have lived 50 years, and I have seen life as it is. | 28:23 | |
| I have seen misery and pain and hunger | 28:30 | |
| and cruelty beyond belief. | 28:35 | |
| I have heard the singing from taverns | 28:38 | |
| and I have heard the moans from bundles of filth | 28:41 | |
| lying inert in the street. | 28:44 | |
| I have seen it all. | 28:47 | |
| I have fought in battle | 28:49 | |
| and seen men die in the field, | 28:50 | |
| or worse, under the slow lash in Africa. | 28:53 | |
| I have held them in my arms in the final moments, | 28:57 | |
| and they died despairing. | 29:01 | |
| There was no glory, | 29:03 | |
| there were no gallant words, | 29:05 | |
| only the confusion and the agony and their eyes | 29:08 | |
| and the whimpering question, why? | 29:11 | |
| And I do not think they asked why they were dying, | 29:14 | |
| they asked why they lived | 29:17 | |
| in a world where life itself is lunatic, | 29:22 | |
| who can say where Magnis lies? | 29:25 | |
| And so Cervantes set out as a service to his generation | 29:29 | |
| to give a word to the men of his time. | 29:35 | |
| He knows of course, | 29:40 | |
| that there has never been a time | 29:41 | |
| when the world was free of heartache | 29:43 | |
| and of despair. | 29:46 | |
| Never a time when the world was free of agony, | 29:48 | |
| and he knows that there was a time | 29:52 | |
| when men believe that knights might ride out gallantly | 29:54 | |
| to slay dragons, | 29:59 | |
| to deliver maidens, | 30:01 | |
| to break open prisons, | 30:03 | |
| to lift up the fallen. | 30:05 | |
| But that time has long since passed. | 30:08 | |
| The knight's armor is tarnished, | 30:11 | |
| the plune is the bedraggled. | 30:14 | |
| The knight (indistinct) in his cumbersome armor | 30:17 | |
| is no match for the swift evil of his own time. | 30:21 | |
| And perhaps, just perhaps, | 30:25 | |
| the very notion that the knight ever was significant, | 30:29 | |
| is an idea that is now being exploded with the new notions | 30:33 | |
| in the printed books. | 30:36 | |
| And so Cervantes sets out to write a parody upon knighthood, | 30:38 | |
| and to say to his generation, | 30:43 | |
| that whatever else an age of grief and misery needs, | 30:46 | |
| it does not need a knight, | 30:50 | |
| for the time when he would be relevant | 30:52 | |
| has long since passed. | 30:55 | |
| And yet, because Cervantes is wise, | 30:59 | |
| he chooses not to preach, but to entertain, | 31:03 | |
| knowing that martyrdom lends dignity to a cause, | 31:08 | |
| but well aimed raring can kill it. | 31:12 | |
| And so Don Quixote is himself a ridiculous character | 31:16 | |
| a veritable lunatic. | 31:21 | |
| Toothless and wheezing, | 31:24 | |
| this mad knight rides out | 31:26 | |
| on a swayed back verminous charger, | 31:28 | |
| imagining himself a titan of romance | 31:31 | |
| and too silly even to be pathetic. | 31:35 | |
| Hard by his warm side there is a warped misshapen peasant | 31:38 | |
| far better fitted for tending cabbages and swine | 31:44 | |
| than for acting the part of the squad. | 31:48 | |
| But the two go out, | 31:50 | |
| (indistinct) pick a rose if ever there was one. | 31:52 | |
| Realism has their way with these two. | 31:57 | |
| And with his lady, Dulcinea, | 32:00 | |
| for she is no more than a common slacken, | 32:04 | |
| and her breath is redolent of garlic and onions. | 32:08 | |
| And yet the story is not vulgar, | 32:13 | |
| the story is not commonplace, | 32:18 | |
| the story is not irrelevant. | 32:21 | |
| These earthy creatures rise up out of their clay | 32:25 | |
| and they challenge comparison with ancient and worthy folk. | 32:30 | |
| They become the very embodiment of our own selves | 32:35 | |
| and they speak to us. | 32:38 | |
| Just as the novel spoke to Cervantes' own time, | 32:40 | |
| and just as the play, "The Man of La Mancha" speaks to us, | 32:45 | |
| he set out to write the story of a ridiculous night, | 32:50 | |
| a parody on knighthood, | 32:54 | |
| but his generation hears him speaking something else. | 32:57 | |
| And so does ours. | 33:02 | |
| Now, why? | 33:04 | |
| How did the miracle happen? | 33:06 | |
| How is it that this madman, becomes a kind of saint | 33:08 | |
| and this tedious peasant becomes a sort of model? | 33:14 | |
| We are not the first to ask the question. | 33:21 | |
| In the play, Aldonza, that poor wretched, derelict, | 33:24 | |
| whose lips that kiss the flesh of a dozen races, | 33:30 | |
| "Aldonza." Asks Sancho, | 33:35 | |
| "Why do you follow after Don Quixote? | 33:39 | |
| Why do you follow him?" | 33:43 | |
| "I don't know," says Sancho, "but I like him. | 33:46 | |
| I really like him." | 33:51 | |
| "Why? You don't get anything out of it." Resists the girl. | 33:53 | |
| "I know, but I can't explain why I really like him." | 33:56 | |
| You see the question asked more than the words inquire, | 34:03 | |
| and the answer is more significant than it first appears, | 34:07 | |
| for Aldonza's doubt and Sancho's faith, | 34:11 | |
| will introduce us to a similar experience. | 34:17 | |
| What his answer translates to is this, | 34:20 | |
| I really like him because he likes me, | 34:24 | |
| but it is more than this. | 34:29 | |
| You see, the world has always loved the fool, | 34:31 | |
| the fool no less than the rest of us | 34:35 | |
| is caught in a world of madness | 34:37 | |
| and he is subjected to the misery of circumstances | 34:40 | |
| that he can't control, | 34:43 | |
| but he behaves as if they weren't true. | 34:44 | |
| The fool of course, looks through the facts and beyond them, | 34:48 | |
| and so he evades the facts and dissolves events. | 34:52 | |
| And in the end, he finally cast doubt upon the fact itself. | 34:57 | |
| Do you see, it is only the fool who can treat the king, | 35:01 | |
| like a coloner, | 35:06 | |
| and yet the fool by his behavior may demonstrate | 35:08 | |
| that the king is less than noble? | 35:12 | |
| And so we like the fool, | 35:15 | |
| but what we like him for most of all, | 35:17 | |
| is that he ignores the fact | 35:20 | |
| of what we seem to be. | 35:22 | |
| My neighbor says, "(indistinct) think that I am nothing, | 35:25 | |
| but if you will, the keeper of a pig sty. | 35:29 | |
| But Don Quixote sees through the fact, | 35:33 | |
| he sees me. | 35:36 | |
| And he sees me because he knows what I am. | 35:39 | |
| And because I understand that he knows me, | 35:43 | |
| somehow I know myself a little better, | 35:47 | |
| or at least a little differently. | 35:50 | |
| I like him because he likes me." | 35:53 | |
| Now, surely it is at this point, | 35:58 | |
| that Don Quixote has something in common | 36:00 | |
| with Jesus of Nazareth, | 36:03 | |
| for much of the appeal of the historic Jesus, | 36:05 | |
| lay in the fact that he persisted | 36:08 | |
| in looking through the facts that people were, | 36:11 | |
| and appealing to them because he saw them | 36:14 | |
| as something else. | 36:17 | |
| He looked at a band of ragged, ignorant fisher folk, | 36:19 | |
| and he says, "I need to for my friends, | 36:23 | |
| I love you. | 36:27 | |
| Will you follow me?" | 36:28 | |
| Or talking with the outcast of the village he said, | 36:30 | |
| "You really aren't what you seem to be, | 36:34 | |
| go and be what you are." | 36:38 | |
| Now this is the meaning and the thrust of the lesson | 36:42 | |
| that was read in our hearing, | 36:45 | |
| not the critical analysis of it, | 36:47 | |
| not the linguistic explanation, | 36:50 | |
| but the meaning, the thrust, | 36:52 | |
| for there is by vitality in paralysis. | 36:55 | |
| And the scribes and the Pharisees are thus, | 36:59 | |
| and they bring down due upon our heads | 37:03 | |
| and so did the publicans and centers not have so much | 37:05 | |
| that we have made them this, | 37:10 | |
| but that we persist in thinking | 37:12 | |
| that they are nothing else than this | 37:15 | |
| and they are unwilling to let them be anything else. | 37:18 | |
| Are you only what your ID card reveals you to be? | 37:22 | |
| How much more you are than this, | 37:29 | |
| only you and God dare admit, | 37:32 | |
| but fools like Don Quixote | 37:36 | |
| move in the direction of seeing through our credentials | 37:39 | |
| and knowing what we are. | 37:43 | |
| The breathtaking appeal of Don Quixote | 37:46 | |
| is not the diversion of a fool | 37:49 | |
| who mistakes windmills for giants, | 37:51 | |
| or a flock of sheep for a marching army. | 37:54 | |
| No, the shattering characteristic about the man | 37:57 | |
| is that he persists in insisting, | 38:01 | |
| that sorted fact will yield to idealism. | 38:04 | |
| And so this silly knight goes out on his errands, | 38:10 | |
| but every knight must have his lady. | 38:14 | |
| And so he selects Aldonza. | 38:17 | |
| know most from the moment he cups eyes upon her, | 38:20 | |
| he insists that she is not Aldonza, | 38:24 | |
| but the Lady Dulcinea. | 38:27 | |
| He writes her a letter | 38:30 | |
| and the faithful Sancho brings it to her. | 38:31 | |
| "What's it say?" she asks | 38:34 | |
| Because of course, Aldonza cannot read. | 38:36 | |
| "O lovely, sovereign and high born lady." Sancho begins | 38:40 | |
| and continues ponderously. | 38:48 | |
| "O fairest of the fair, | 38:50 | |
| O purest of the pure, | 38:53 | |
| incomparable Dulcinea." | 38:56 | |
| "My name is Aldonza." She says. | 38:59 | |
| "My master calls you the Lady Dulcinea." | 39:03 | |
| "Why?" | 39:08 | |
| "I don't know, but it won't do any good to ask questions. | 39:09 | |
| Knights have their own language for everything, | 39:14 | |
| and it will only get you into trouble to question him." | 39:17 | |
| And yet Aldonza persists, | 39:22 | |
| later asking of the mad knight himself. | 39:24 | |
| "Would you just want," she begs | 39:28 | |
| "look at me as I really am and see me for what I am?" | 39:31 | |
| And Don Quixote, looking into her pleading eyes, says, | 39:37 | |
| "I see beauty, | 39:42 | |
| I see purity, | 39:44 | |
| I see Dulcinea." | 39:47 | |
| It is a long and plenty exchange. | 39:50 | |
| Dulcinea rails and lashes at him. | 39:54 | |
| He has shone up the sky, | 39:57 | |
| but what good is the sky to anyone | 39:59 | |
| who will never do anything but crawl? | 40:01 | |
| What good does it have to see ambition | 40:04 | |
| when you are hopelessly bound in the earth? | 40:08 | |
| There is no meaning left to life. | 40:11 | |
| The worst crime of all is being born. | 40:13 | |
| And when she attempts by his standards | 40:16 | |
| to minister to his and her enemies, | 40:18 | |
| then they degrade and ravish, | 40:22 | |
| and ridicule, | 40:25 | |
| and abandon her. | 40:27 | |
| And yet, | 40:30 | |
| and yet in the end, | 40:32 | |
| the knight wins. | 40:35 | |
| For when his embarrassed family have safely rescued him | 40:37 | |
| and brought him home again, | 40:41 | |
| to spare him from further spectacle before the world, | 40:44 | |
| and to save their own purse. | 40:48 | |
| When he has made his peace with God, | 40:50 | |
| and when he is ready to die, | 40:53 | |
| he goes out and departs of the world like a knight. | 40:56 | |
| And Cervantes has proven his point. | 41:01 | |
| Knighthood is no longer an option, | 41:04 | |
| but Aldonza has fallen and she stands close by his bed. | 41:07 | |
| Even the redoubtable Sancho so filled with proverbs | 41:13 | |
| is defenseless in the mute presence of death. | 41:18 | |
| And he sobs out in Pathos, "He's dead. | 41:21 | |
| My master Don Quixote is dead." | 41:27 | |
| "No, Sancho." Says Aldonza. | 41:31 | |
| "He is not dead. | 41:34 | |
| Don Quixote is not dead. | 41:36 | |
| Believe Sancho, | 41:40 | |
| and in (indistinct) he turns to her, | 41:42 | |
| "Aldonza." | 41:45 | |
| "My name," she replies "is Dulcinea." | 41:47 | |
| Now something of this transformation | 41:53 | |
| was accomplished in Cervantes himself. | 41:56 | |
| Do you see he set out to write the story | 42:00 | |
| of a ridiculous knight, but in the course of the story | 42:02 | |
| the knight turns more nearly into the sage, | 42:06 | |
| not so much by what he says, | 42:10 | |
| but by the reflected light that shines | 42:13 | |
| and the gentle character | 42:16 | |
| and the persistent ideal of the man. | 42:18 | |
| The character of Don Quixote changes | 42:21 | |
| and one can only guess, | 42:24 | |
| that the character of Cervantes himself had changed, | 42:26 | |
| changed because he too was exposed to the knight. | 42:31 | |
| Do you see in the play? | 42:35 | |
| One has Cervantes thrown into jail by the inquisitors, | 42:37 | |
| and so he tells the prisoners the story of Don Quixote | 42:41 | |
| and the scene shifts from the story of Don Quixote | 42:45 | |
| to the scene in the prison back and forth, back and forth, | 42:49 | |
| until it is no longer possible to tell | 42:53 | |
| where Don Quixote leaves off | 42:55 | |
| and where Cervantes takes on, | 42:57 | |
| until in the end, it is impossible to separate Don Quixote | 43:00 | |
| from Cervantes or the death of one | 43:06 | |
| from the death of the other, | 43:09 | |
| but in their fusion and death, | 43:11 | |
| a new man is born, The Man of La Mancha. | 43:13 | |
| And he it is who has a word for the madness of his own time. | 43:17 | |
| He is the holy wanderer. | 43:23 | |
| He is that strange combination of spiritual gifts | 43:27 | |
| and spiritual frailties, | 43:30 | |
| that is nothing more nor less than charity and action. | 43:33 | |
| And it is course for this reason that he is misunderstood, | 43:38 | |
| though it wouldn't bother Don Quixote for an instant. | 43:43 | |
| Rejection of some wounds him, but not of the intellectuals. | 43:47 | |
| This one is a man of faith and of action, | 43:52 | |
| "For mere scholars," he says to Sancho, | 43:56 | |
| "to reject me | 43:59 | |
| or scholars who have never tried the path of chivalry, | 44:01 | |
| I despise that criticism." He says. | 44:05 | |
| "I laugh at it." | 44:07 | |
| Which is only another way of saying | 44:09 | |
| that the solution for the problem of his time | 44:11 | |
| or up any time, | 44:15 | |
| lies in orienting one's values to the eternal. | 44:17 | |
| We have done it just the other way around. | 44:22 | |
| We have shaped the next world if there be one, | 44:25 | |
| by our confused creations. | 44:30 | |
| We judge the goodness of anything | 44:33 | |
| as to whether it accommodates itself to our here and now. | 44:35 | |
| The standard American question is always, will it work? | 44:40 | |
| Will it last a season? | 44:44 | |
| Is it practical? | 44:47 | |
| And yet, the majestic creatures of Don Quixote | 44:49 | |
| are just this, | 44:54 | |
| because they insist upon searching for an ideal | 44:56 | |
| for which they find or will ever find | 45:00 | |
| any earthly counterpart. | 45:03 | |
| And so they rise out of the folly, | 45:06 | |
| which en-meshes them | 45:08 | |
| and their own folly becomes their deepest wisdom, | 45:11 | |
| and their pursuit of it becomes their recompense. | 45:15 | |
| Sheer madness of course, | 45:20 | |
| utter madness for his time or ours, | 45:22 | |
| but would you hear once more, his testament of faith, | 45:26 | |
| his rule of light, | 45:31 | |
| to dream the impossible dream, | 45:35 | |
| to fight the unbeatable foe, | 45:40 | |
| the bear with unbearable sorrow, | 45:44 | |
| to run, where the brave dare not go, | 45:48 | |
| to right the un-rightable wrong, | 45:52 | |
| to love pure and chaste from afar, | 45:56 | |
| to try when the arms are too weary | 46:01 | |
| to reach the unreachable star, this is my quest, | 46:04 | |
| to follow the star, no matter how hopeless, | 46:08 | |
| no matter how far, | 46:11 | |
| to fight for the right without question or pause, | 46:14 | |
| to be willing to march into hell for the heavenly cause. | 46:17 | |
| And I know if I'll but true to the glorious quest, | 46:23 | |
| that my heart shall lie calm and peaceful. | 46:28 | |
| I know, | 46:34 | |
| to dream the impossible dream | 46:36 | |
| and the world will be better for this, | 46:40 | |
| that one man, | 46:43 | |
| sore and covered with scars, | 46:45 | |
| strove with his last ounce of courage, | 46:48 | |
| to reach the unreachable stars. | 46:52 | |
| Sheer madness, of course, | 46:56 | |
| but the world needs some mad men now, | 46:59 | |
| see why the sane ones have gotten us. | 47:02 | |
| Let us pray. | 47:06 | |
| Almighty God, | 47:12 | |
| give us the honesty and the wit, | 47:17 | |
| to understand what we have been, | 47:22 | |
| the grace to acknowledge what we are, | 47:29 | |
| and the indwelling spirit to be what we may become. | 47:36 | |
| Through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 47:42 | |
| Amen. | 47:45 | |
| (calm religious music) | 47:55 | |
| (choir singing faintly) | 48:31 | |
| (calm music) | 51:36 | |
| (choir sings faintly) | 52:36 | |
| (calm music) | 53:31 | |
| (choir sings faintly) | 53:41 | |
| (calm music) | 54:47 | |
| (choir sings faintly) | 55:09 | |
| O God, Father of all mercies, | 58:25 | |
| receive this offering which we present to thee | 58:28 | |
| as part of our worship, | 58:30 | |
| may these gifts be the symbol of our consecration unto thee | 58:33 | |
| and to thy son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 58:38 | |
| Amen. | 58:43 | |
| And out of God's gracious mercy and perfection | 58:45 | |
| do we commit you. | 58:51 | |
| May the blessing of God come upon you abundantly, | 58:53 | |
| may it keep you strong and tranquil | 58:59 | |
| in the truth of His promises through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 59:02 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 59:07 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 59:10 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 59:15 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 59:19 | |
| (choir sings faintly) | 59:24 | |
| (calm music) | 1:00:30 |