Wednesday, December 19, 2012

"a dream that will need all the love you can give..."

" Maria, these walls were not meant to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live." -Mother Abbess, The Sound of Music

     One of my all time favorite movie quotes comes from the classic film The Sound of Music. Yes, it is considered by many to be a sentimental family film richly layered with award winning songs and unforgettable lyrics written by the famous musical gods, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. It is also a story of love, survival and conviction.
    Setting the scene: Max Detweiler, a long time Von Trapp family friend reveals his great concern for Naval Captain, Georg Von Trapp after the Captain has been informed that he must leave his family and report to the Nazi Naval Headquarters in Bremerhaven, Germany. As a newlywed husband, a renewed loving father and proud nostalgic Austrian, Georg is irrevocably disgusted and opposed to all of Hitler's hateful, tyrannical ideology. Georg never disguises his contempt in every interaction with the Third Reich from ripping down their hideous flag hung without his permission from his homes balcony to trading insults with his egotistical, paranoid "superiors". All the while Max, Maria and the Von Trapp children are sensing and observing how fearful and hostile the world is becoming as the men surrounding Georg feel threatened and angry over any type of resistance.
      Max, wanting to appease the rising power, perhaps for his own selfish motives, pleads with Maria, "He's got to at least *pretend* to work with these people. You must convince him." Maria, although aware of the danger her husband and family face responds with one of the most compassionate and courageous lines describing the constant struggle for love and human justice, "I can't ask him to be less than he is."