Castle in the Clouds

You know the song?  I assume you know the song, because just a few years ago the movie adaptation was the talk of the town.  The song, it is beautiful, emotion filled, poetry music.  It is lovely.

 

In college I took a music class to make me a required well rounded student, and it was good for me.  My class was musical theatre.  The music behind the theatrical production.  The inner workings of the art produced.

 

As a watcher of musicals, plays and such, I enjoyed the class.  I picked Les Miserables as the show topic for my big huge project.  I listened to the music over and over.  I knew the story, but now I knew, in a deeper way, the emotions.

 

I love the story of Les Miserables.  I love the redemption and the exhibit of true character.  I love what seems to be the black and white of evil, and yet there are the questions that seem so...grey.  They can only be answered in the grey.  And at the same time there are the messages that are so counter cultural.  Lavish forgiveness. Denouncement of fortune for the sake of statement of beliefs and follow through.  A questioning of judgement.  Is is ok to lie and steal for "good reasons?"

 

And in the middle of it all there is a time to dream.  There is an escape.  The past for some people becomes wiped clean.  A castle in the clouds.

 

I go to my own castle in the clouds.  I escape from the world.  And sometimes we need to create those castles.  The world is just too much right now.  People are struggling and others are wielding cruelty in barbaric ways.  I can do nothing, so I go to the castle.  And the king of the castle, he listens and comforts and then asks me how I will help those outside the castle.  And I shake my head and ask What tangible thing I could do?

I don't have an answer.