"The wages of Joy are Life".
I was in 4th grade or so when CBS aired the Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor version of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus", directed by Burton and Neville Coghill. It was the first "Shakespearean" film I remember seeing, though we'd memorized "The Seven Ages of Man" in Mrs. Beall's Speech class.
The tag line for Marlowe was "Stipendium peccati mors est" - "the wages of sin are death". It was the first Latin I'd ever really paid attention to - both for its strangeness and for the theme it presented in the film.
The idea of death being the result of sinful behavior - defined by other people except oneself, of course - that habit took a while to instill - was very close to how my family related to life. There was always lots of fear and guilt to go around.
Still, life finds a way. I think we can always accept its constant invitation to dance if our fingers aren't jammed too far into our ears. If we can understand the words and accept our worthiness to dance then it can happen at anytime.
In my case, Madeline L'Engle's book "A Wrinkle In Time", suggested to me by my second-older sister, kept that voice familiar to me until I could accept it.
I'm glad the child that read that book is still very much within me - caught in the beauty of both light and dark, hoping for one, accepting the other, believing in love as a real bridge between the two - and between people.
I watched a new dancer who joined us at practica tonight. Adira worked with her and then I got nodded to "take her in hand" and dance. This is a task the "experienced" dancers undertake to give new people a sense of accomplishment so they'll come back. After I'd taken her through 3 or 4 songs we sat down and another fellow came by - she said she wasn't sure if she should continue and was experiencing a burst of "Catholic Guilt".
My response was "Absolvo te", "you are forgiven". Studying all those Mass forms in undergrad school paid off, I suppose. The thought "looks like she's having a good time" called up my pidgin Latin and I thought how an inhalation of Joy can lead to an exhalation of Life.
This all takes a lot of work - but some things are more fun than fun, if you get my drift.
Do you?
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