Alright, confession time...Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of the funniest movies ever made. It's stupid, I know, but it's one of those movies that I can sit down to watch and totally turn my brain off. You don't have to think about the plot. You don't really even have to keep up with the characters. You can just sit back and laugh. And dog gone I need that every now and then.
There is one scene in the movie where the townspeople have caught a witch, or at least, they've accused her of being a witch. Allow me a second to recreate that moment...
Crowd: "A witch! A witch! A Witch! We've got a witch! A witch!"
Villager #1: "We have found a witch. Might we burn her?"
Crowd: "Burn her! Burn her!"
Bedemir: "How do you know she is a witch?"
Villager #2: "She looks like one."
Bedemir: "Bring her forward."
Witch: "I am not a witch! I am not a witch!"
Bedemir: "But you are dressed as one."
Witch: "They dressed me up like this."
Crowd: "No, we didn't...no."
Witch: "And this isn't my nose. It's a false one."
Bedemir: "Well?"
illager #1: "Well, we did do the nose."
illager #1: "Well, we did do the nose."
Bedemir: "The nose?"
Villager #1: "And the hat...but she is a witch!"
Crowd: "Burn her! Burn her! Witch! Witch! Burn her!"
Bedemir: "Did you dress her up like this?"
Crowd: "No...no...no...yes...yes...yes...a bit...a bit."
Villager #1: "She has got a wart."
Bedemir: "What makes you think she is a witch?"
Villager #3: "She turned me into a newt."
Bedemir: "A newt?"
Villager #3: "I got better."
Now, without the visuals, some of the hilarity of that scene is lost. This poor woman has been caught by the townsfolks and they have stuck a carrot on her face to make her look like a witch. But even as funny as it is, there is one truth in it that cannot be ignored...nobody likes getting caught in a half truth. Not the crowd in Monty Python, and not Saul in 1 Samuel.
Saul was king of Israel and had been told by God to go out and totally destroy the Amalekites. He went out and destroyed most of them, but he did not kill King Agag, and he let his men keep the best of the flocks. Samuel then went to find Saul, and when Saul saw Samuel coming he said, "The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord's instructions." Saul then asked, "What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle I hear?" Saul then answered, "The soldiers brought them up from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest."
"No...no...no...yes...yes...yes...a bit...a bit."
I would like to think that Saul really did think that he had done what had been asked, and maybe that is where some of the half truths in our lives come from. I don't know. I know that I nearly always got busted as a kid, mom and dad could tell when I wasn't being totally honest. Now, I can do the same with my kids.
I'm not gettin on a soapbox or being judgmental in any way, I just thought it a little funny that the first king of Israel got caught bending the truth a little. And oh, the townsfolk did finally get to burn their witch I think, but it was because she weighed more than a duck and not because of her funny nose. Yeah, you don't really want to know...
Here's a link if you've got 4 minutes that you don't know what to do with and would like to watch the witch
Peace
J
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