Courage | Strength | Suffering | Trial

PERSISTENCE AGAINST SUFFERING
There are powerful parables to be found in the pages of some modern dramas — scenes that depict the human condition and grip the heart with the tragic moral choices we face in a fallen world. Whether it is the tender scene in Death of A Salesman, where Linda pleads with her sons that a man like Willy Loman must not be simply dumped meaninglessly on the ash heap, or whether it is the tragic revelations of A Thousand Clowns or A Streetcar Named Desire. Such scenes take some work to set up as a sermon illustration. One I found to be helpful was the scene in Act II of The Miracle Worker, the play about Helen Keller’s teacher, Annie Sullivan. (I used the television adaptation.) There is an encounter in which James, Helen’s brother, is trying to get Annie to give up on trying to get through to Helen, even as he and others have given up. But Annie simply…