Macbeth

At the moment I am teaching a class on Shakespeare for the LMHSC Muskegon Co-op.  The poor thing has been trampled over by the ancient literature class I'm teaching, but I still have a lot of reading to do.  This week is Macbeth.  I had been concerned about how dark the play is for the kids to read, but this is Shakespeare.  He always repays reading.  I usually find something newly made interesting with each time I read the plays, this pass I can't stop thinking about the witches.

I've almost made my peace with witches in literature.  The version in the Chronicles of Prydain had me thinking of them as wily survivors. Terri Pratchett's Weird Sisters explains the relationships between the women in my family better than just about any other shorthand.  Of course, there is Jo Rowling's. eminently Christian witches and wizards, oh sure she dribbled in a pinch of this and a bit of that, but when Harry goes out to the woods, he carries a cross.

Something about Shakespeare's witches has ripped the bandaid off.  There is something about the wild malevolence that is giving me the shivers, just as it did the first time I read the play.  I am reminded that there are those who do evil because they can.  They will use every gift they've ever been given and some they stole to spit in your eye.  I remember that there are still places in the world where a visit from the witch doctor is anything but a joke.

I find myself wanting to do more than shiver.  I want to understand what the right relationship with the truly wicked is.  We applaud the courageous compassion of Dead Man Walking.  We also applaud those who overthrew and hanged Sadaam Hussein.  I guess I'm wondering what's up to God and what's up to me.