Everlasting Place
  • Home
  • One way
    • Proof
  • Sadie Sparrow
    • Sadie Sparrow Excerpt
    • Author Chat
    • Articles
    • Book Reviews
  • Memoir
    • Memoir Excerpts
    • Reviews, interviews & endorsements
  • Blogs
    • Eternal eyes: a blog about forever
    • Golden years: a blog about the elderly
  • Old folks
    • Planting tips for Christians
  • Messages from Chris Carrillo
  • Library
  • Bookstore
  • Contact

What should the simple folk do?

10/27/2015

2 Comments

 
Picture
The 1967 movie Camelot is one of my all-time favorites -- great story, wonderful acting, and oh, the music! I spent much of my childhood playing Lerner and Loewe’s original Broadway score on the piano, neglecting the exercises so meticulously prescribed by my piano teacher. Today, over a half century later, I still sing these numbers to myself regularly, forgetting not a word or a note or the raw emotion in every line.  
 
Lately, the song “What Do the Simple Folk Do?” has been haunting me. In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s sung by Queen Guinevere and King Arthur (Vanessa Redgrave and Richard Harris in the movie; Julie Andrews and Richard Burton on Broadway). The catalyst is Guinevere’s secret love for Sir Lancelot du Lac, and Arthur’s unspoken knowledge of their affair.
 
Alone together, both of them heartsick but not speaking of the cause, Guinevere asks Arthur in song:
 
What do the simple folk do
To help them escape when they're blue?
The shepherd who is ailing, the milkmaid who is glum,
The cobbler who is wailing from nailing his thumb?
When they're beset and besieged –
The folk not noblessly obliged –
However do they manage to shed their weary lot?
Oh, what do simple folk do we do not?

 
Arthur offers her several solutions: They whistle. They sing. They dance a fiery dance. Arthur and Guinevere try each one, but find no relief. He has only one more solution to offer: “They sit around and wonder what royal folk would do.”
 
It strikes me that this song is really a profound analysis of very common human behaviors – for these are among the things most of us do to try to mend our hearts, to bury our troubles, to silence our consciences.  
 
We mask our sadness with happy music.
 
Steep our fears in frenetic exercise, wild dancing, morning-to-night activity.
 
Saturate ourselves with ultimately futile obsessions, from celebrity worship to non-stop pursuit of entertainment, education, art, travel, clothes, home-decorating. 
 
Anything to avoid being alone with our thoughts. And with the truth.
 
No wonder none of it works for long. If our only hope is for this current life, we are hopeless indeed.
 
I find it interesting that Lerner and Loewe failed to offer one more possible cure for heartache in this song, the one cure that is both foolproof and permanent: turning to the Lord, asking for His help, and consulting His word for the keys to eternal peace and joy.
 
Just think: If Guinevere, Arthur and Lancelot had done that, there could actually have been a happy ending to this tragic tale. 
2 Comments
darlene link
10/28/2015 05:02:20 am

My first thought after reading it was, Lord thank you that I lived long enough to realize Your love and Your importance in my life is what really matter..

Reply
Kitty Foth-Regner link
10/28/2015 06:27:42 am

Amen, Darlene!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Kitty
    Foth-Regner

    I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, a freelance copywriter, a nursing-home volunteer, and the author of books both in-process and published -- including Heaven Without Her. 

    Archives

    December 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013

    Care to subscribe?

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photos used under Creative Commons from tracie7779, Luci Correia, Maxwell Hamilton, giardinaggio, Doug1021, Angel Xavier Viera, Damian Gadal, Reboots, leoncillo sabino, mRio, HikingArtist.com, guymoll, csath07, Guudmorning!, fred_v, homegets.com, ishaip, jinxmcc, freeparking :-|, CallMeWhatEver, BryonLippincott, simpleinsomnia, csread, nicephore, Doug Beckers, mandydale, berniedup, tontantravel, h.koppdelaney, Jill Clardy, anieto2k, NASA Goddard Photo and Video, QuidoX, Ryo | [ addme. ], ShebleyCL, TinyTall, proggy-yahoo, Infiniteyes, Genista, kippster, Speculum Mundi, HerPhotographer, Tauralbus, megallypuff, harshxpatel, Waiting For The Word, CoreBurn, Gordon Chirgwin, {Guerrilla Futures | Jason Tester}, John McLinden, Patrick Feller, jikatu, Peter O'Connor aka anemoneprojectors, byzantiumbooks, bizmac, H o l l y., Peter Blanchard, sheriffmitchell, Tony Webster, hectorir, City of Overland Park, luis_cunha, Sam Howzit, bertknot, QuotesEverlasting, iturde, ejmc, VARNISHdesign, Cimm, Good Book Reader, Renaud Camus, banjipark, romana klee, 00alexx, erix!, branestawm2002, amsfrank, m01229, cbcmemberphotos2477, rhode.nel, Veronique Debord, joshjanssen, zenjazzygeek, h.koppdelaney, Laurel Mill Players, quinn.anya, *ErinBrierley*, Ben Pugh, Photographing Travis, BarnImages.com, anees.waqas, swambo, Alan Miles NYC, glenngould, Patrick Feller, davecito, wade in da water, Endre Majoros, France1978, dainamara, theseanster93, insightpest, eliduke, volker-kannacher, cogdogblog, Editor B, poshdee, brewbooks, J D Mack, ThomasKohler, mayeesherr. (in West Bengal!), TEDxHouston, Ms. Phoenix, PBoGS, Eselsmann™, Inside Guide To London, ShironekoEuro, Tom Anderson, flequi, cogdogblog, njaminjami, Search Engine People Blog, ShanMcG213, Julie Edgley, randihausken, pescatello, Waiting For The Word, moriza, Iain Farrell, Arizona Parrot, digitalmindphotography, enjosmith, www.WeisserPhotography.com, STC4blues, Holidayextras, Randy Roe, goprogresswent, BenDibble, kstoyer, Rennett Stowe, williac, ImNotQuiteJack, Life Mental Health, Jose Antonio Cotallo Lopez, gruntzooki, electricinca, adactio, miheco, Zemlinki!, bnilsen, chispita_666