The Messenger - September 2007 - Editorial /Sept 07
By John Looby, SJ - 01 September 2007
Harvest Moon: I have always loved the harvest moon. The great, big moon of August speaks of fullness, a completion of the promises of spring and the warmth of summer in a plentiful harvest. The cold and dark of winter beckon but the harvest will see you safely through it until the new growth comes again.
I have always loved the harvest moon. The great, big moon of August speaks of fullness, a completion of the promises of spring and the warmth of summer in a plentiful harvest. The cold and dark of winter beckon but the harvest will see you safely through it until the new growth comes again.
I know that is a little romantic and not the modern, urban way of looking at it. Neither is the play that always comes to mind whenever I think of the August moon. The play was called The Teahouse of the August Moon and was made into a film about 1960 with Marlon Brando in the leading role. It is set in the Japanese island of Okinawa when brash, super-confident American troops occupy the island at the end of the Second World War. They come up against an old and wise civilization that has been conquered innumerable times and has learned the art of survival - if not quite of conquering the newest conquerors.
Sakini is the interpreter whose wide-eyed innocence and gentle guile talks the young American captain into diverting the timber designated to build a schoolhouse, to build a teahouse instead. Imperceptibly the Americans are transformed into happy Okinawans, at least, until senior American officers arrive to inspect the progress. In this gentle, almost fairytale land, the play ends not in catastrophe, but with everyone celebrating in the new teahouse.
In our school production I found what seemed the perfect Sakini, a young boy with an infectious laugh and a glint of devilment in his eye - just the right combination for the role. He revelled in the role and the cast was almost as happy as the natives of Okinawa were, at least until they recognized that he could not remember one scene from the next. The prompters developed an anxious look. Apparently it was fruitless for me to ask him to be a ‘good boy’ and learn his lines. We lived with the hope that all would be right on the night.
Our Sakini never did quite learn his lines, but the young actor with great goodwill was the good boy I had incessantly begged him to be. He was the loveable Sakini, without being Sakini the rogue. What you teach is not necessarily what someone else learns. That is a bit of wisdom that is hard to learn. Even Christ discovered that too, ‘hearing they do not hear nor understand’ (Mt.13:13).
The final lines of The Teahouse summed up the wisdom that the East learned long ago:
What was true in the beginning, remains true;
Pain makes man think, thought makes man wise;
Wisdom makes life endurable.
John Looby, SJ