Jewell Ellen Smith’s
Sunbonnet Soliloquy January 24, 1973
Usually, the thought of the devil never enters my head.
But for the past few weeks I’ve had seven devils on my mind! They are all characters in “The Devils of Magdala,” a new play that I’ve been working on for the Ft. Rucker Chapel ladies to present at their annual Good Friday Prayer Breakfast, April 20.
These Biblical plays and the Easter time prayer breakfast have become something of a tradition at Ft. Rucker. This will be the tenth such breakfast held, and, the seventh original play staged.
Last year, more than 300 women from Ft. Rucker, Ozark, Daleville, Dothan, Enterprise, and other nearby communities attended. And the same thing is likely to happen again this year. So, this 1973 pageant, religious musical, or whatever it can be termed, has to be good!
What to call the devils who come swaggering on stage in the first act is a problem. True, the Bible mentions plenty of demons. But not by name. The idea of putting a drove of evil spirits into a play to be acted out on such a holy day as Good Friday comes originally from a line in one of the Gospels. It goes:
“Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with them, as they mourned and wept.” (Mark 16:9-10)
And now that I have these demons down on paper I’m forced to search for suitable names. What can you call the badness that’s in us all?
Hate?
Yes, that’s suitable.
Envy?
Good. I’ll name one “Envy.”
And, I’ve come across a third possibility: Selfishness. This, oddly enough, I’m giving serious thought to after reading an article on stars in the January 13 issue of SCIENCE NEWS.
The writer, Dietrick E. Thomsen, uses a lot of terms way above my head, for I know little about astronomy and less about physics. But as best I can figure it out, there is such a thing in the universe as selfish stars.
Astronomers call them “black holes.” They appear to be stars that have collapsed under the influence of their own gravity. And they are sort of cut off from the rest of the universe because their own surface gravity has “become so strong that neither matter or radiation can escape” from them.
In other words, they’re just black blobs, trying to pull other matter towards themselves.
The headline of the article read: “Black holes: No longer hypothetical—astronomers believe they now see at least two.” And one of the drawings given to show how these newly discovered black holes operate shows a black hole trying to distort the nearest normal star by pulling the shining star towards itself.
Aren’t people like that? Don’t we whiz around in an orbit of our own, grasping and pulling to ourselves what we want without too much worry over what our selfishness will do to whoever happens to be in the way?
We do. We all have an element of selfishness in us! Part of it, granted, is an instinct for self-preservation. But in far too many of us this instinct is over-developed.
So, I think I’ll call one of the devils in the play “Selfishness.” With the middle initial of G. The G will stand for “Greed.” Yes, that’s just what I’ll do. And this third devil can wear a name tag that reads: “Selfishness G.”
That way, the audience is sure to get the point.
Well, goodness! I didn’t mean to preach a sermon in this piece. That can come in the big play.
Let us get back to that script. There are still four of “The Devils of Magdala” who need names—not to mention nine good spirits, and the disciples, and soldiers, and angels, and some half dozen more characters who make up the play.
I may have to get out and gaze at the stars every night from now ‘till Good Friday!