What do we want? What is our will?
For a Christian the obvious right answer is to want God’s will, but what we call God’s will is often mixed up with our own desires. Shakespeare understood this and presents good lessons for us in his comedy Twelfth Night, or What You Will.
What is God’s will? How can we know it and so conform to it? What is the best signpost to it? Is it love?
Many of us long for love. Twelfth Night begins with a love starved count saying, “If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die.” (I.i) His love is misplaced and so is making him miserable. The woman he thinks would be best for him does not love him . . . and he does not recognize that near at hand is a woman who will give him happiness.
He longs for something that God will give him, but his specific desires are out of order. How true that is of life! God wishes to grant all humankind the true desires of their heart, but we often mistake where those longings can be satisfied.
We live in a culture where the Church wants to meet our felt needs, but Shakespeare knows that most of us don’t know our real needs. If we got what we wanted, it would keep us from getting what we need!
Malvolio, a puritan with a bad will (as his very name signifies), believes that getting what is best is equal to his own will. He gives frequent credit to god (”Jove”) for events, but his god is truly pagan . . . the giver of favors like a king in a human court.
Malvolio’s view of reality is overly simple . . . Malvolio believes that god is in control, but that a good god will always act in ways obviously in the best interests of Malvolio. In that way he is not so different from us!
We wish that God’s work in the world would be manifest. We want to see the good exalted and the wicked punished. Shakespeare is wiser than this. He understands that the wicked are punishing themselves . . . and though this punishment does not always occur as quickly as we might wish (in our lack of charity for our fellow human beings!), anyone can see it in the end.
On the other hand, much reward occurs in Heaven, the true home for the righteous. The religion of the martyrs cannot expect to tidy an ending for the righteous and Twelfth Night (like many of Shakespeare’s plays) does not give us one.
We try to have our will by words. Many of us believe that we can talk our way around any problem, but the physical universe that God made is not virtual, but real. In Twelfth Night,
Shakespeare plays with words, plays with actors pretending, but nobody defeats reality. Women are women whatever their dress. Good men are good, even if not recognized as such . . . and the wicked cannot escape their true nature by external righteousness.
“Nay that’s certain; they that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton.” (III.i)
Words cannot recreate, but they can corrupt, by causing men to mistake folly for wisdom and being wanton for being in love. Words can cause men to make mistakes that destroy, but they cannot change or even long conceal fundamental natures.
The good news of the play is that it is not merely fate that guides us. As Shakespeare shows, the cosmos conveniently turns out well for the righteous in the long term. The good are not always rewarded in this life (though in comedy they usually are!), but the wicked never escape.
Malvolio learns nothing from his torment and vows revenge to the end. The man of self-will can only suffer, but cannot learn from it. The man or woman of good will (such as Viola or Sebastian) can suffer, but cannot be truly harmed by it. They gain more than they ever lose!
Fate would not deal so justly . . . so it is not mere fate that controls their destiny nor can it be their own good choices, since Shakespeare introduces too many happy “coincidences” for that! It is God who governs all in Shakespeare’s comedies, as it is in real life.
In fact, the wicked in Twelfth Night end up hurting each other and blessing the righteous, which is not as uncommon as you might think! God thrusts greatness on the good, but the wicked cannot achieve it for all their scheming.
If you are discouraged tonight, recall that it is not your birth, your fate, or your striving that will decide your destiny. It is a good Father who loves you . . . and who will meet your heart’s deepest longings!
If you are near La Mirada, California tonight you should take the chance to see the splendid cast of this play at 7:30 on in Meyer’s Auditorium. This is amateur theatrical at its best with directing that is not at all amateur and several actors who are simply perfect.
It is funny from start to finish. I promise it ends in at least one wedding and (as my son points out) it also contains swords!