Keepin' it real

The Purcellville Gazette's latest issue contained a review of our Pride and Prejudice. David Sackrider spoke kindly of us, indeed, he spoke kindly of us when he reported on Macbeth, too, but he still rather took me aback. I detected what you might call a worldview collision. I'm not trying to refute him exactly, and I may misquote him slightly, because alas I don't have a copy of the article with me and it isn't online yet, but I'll try to exercise charity. :-) He got me thinking.

He started out the article talking about how we were "keepin' it real" without baggy jeans, cell phones, or i-pods. Rather, we got it across by the characterization. Well--yes, precisely. The story works because it's a good story, and the characters are real people. Eden Troupe assumes that all people, in all times, are the same kind of thing--namely, human--and therefore old stories can be quite as relevant as new ones; possibly more relevant, because less blinded by our own culture's idiosyncrasies. Regency humans were living people too, and that's one reason Jane Austen is still so popular: she was a good artist who could create people recognizable as such. It frankly never occurred to us that Pride and Prejudice could be less real because it wasn't set in the twenty-first century.

The i-pod comment threw me for a loop. What in the world would make someone think that reality was determined by the presence or absence of i-pods?? I guess if you define "world" to include only our present material reality, then technology looks more important. Probably if you assume that you can determine your reality, either in a New Agey, ubermenchish, or just plain secular way, then technology is really important, because technology helps you do it. Or maybe technology is just the most interesting thing presented to us, and so we start defining our universe around it. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I suppose I was coming at the question differently. Life is more than i-pods, and the body more than fashion. We, like the medievals, are accustomed to seeing people in every story, in Paradise Lost, in Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah, at Troy, in Jerusalem, in Rome, on the Grail quest when being tempted by fiends disguised as maidens in black silk, in the court of Queen Elizabeth, in Jane Austen's book about the Bennets and Darcys and Bingleys, and even maybe in modern stories about Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The fact that hardly any of these people wore jeans struck me as a complete irrelevancy; I myself don't wear jeans all the time. The medievals had a habit of ignoring cultural differences entirely and illustrating even Biblical characters in contemporary medieval garb; historical costuming accuracy is rather cool, but their way emphasized the immediacy of old stories. They say when Shakespeare put on Julius Caesar, the senators wore Elizabethan doublets.

Yet I don't want to ignore the difference that clothes make to a person. There's something about living up to how you dress. I think outfits have customs attached to them, like words have connotations as well as their denotative meaning; one behaves more formally when wearing a Liberty Ball gown, and the militia stands up straighter when in uniform. When you put on the robe of righteousness which is Christ's, you become more inwardly righteous. Yet--you are a person, no matter what your clothes, and therefore a story about you has the potential to be interesting and applicable to other persons.

Shyamalan's "The Village" is an interesting case in point. Perhaps the movie is more "relevant" because of its ending, but I'm not convinced.

Which brings me to an observation I made this morning at church. We sang the Doxology, and our worship leader--an excellent fellow--said we were going to sing it in a way that was "more relevant." This involved adding drums and guitars. That's it. The only difference I could find. I inquire, with some concern, if songs without guitars and drums are therefore less relevant. Modus tollens would indicate so. Don't get me wrong, I like drums and guitars. I actually prefer them to organs, though organs have their good points too (like the fact Helen loves them:-)). But--what??? The relevance of truth is determined by which instruments you use?? Yipes!

I hereby assert that God determines reality, and as long as that is quite straight, details like fashions in worship, clothes, philosophy, and technology suddenly become a lot less important. Pride and Prejudice, anyone?