Recently I wrote about my extremely brief theater career when I played the lead in my high school musical. I had the role of Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. It was a glimpse into the future about how I would become a skinny, occasionally delusional old man with impossible dreams. 

You may know that the play is based on Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century novel Don Quixote. The musical unfolds as a play within a play, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as he awaits a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition. Cervantes takes on the character of "mad knight" Don Quixote and he assigns roles for the other prisoners. In my earlier post I wrote about one spiritual takeaway from the play.

How the gentle “knight errant” viewed the harlot Aldonza was the subject of that article. Quixote saw a lady and gentle spirit buried deep beneath the hardened and bitter exterior. Eventually she believed what the Man of La Mancha said about her and she left her old identity behind. Don Quixote was an agent of grace in her life.

One of the most powerful scenes in the play can also be applied to our Christian journey. The family and acquantances gather to consider how the “mad knight” can be quietly put away. He has become an embarrassement to them even though his efforts were harmless. They plan to stop him while singing how they are “only thinking of him”. The plan is to confront him in a room of mirrors so he can see who he really is. That he is not a courageous knight but a foolish old man. Here is a bit of that scene.

Look, Don Quixote. Look in the mirror of reality...
              and behold things as they truly are.
              Look, Don Quixote.
              Look in the mirror of reality.
              Look! What seest thou, Don Quixote?
              A gallant knight? Naught but an aging fool.
              Look, dost thou see him?
              A madman dressed for a masquerade.
              A masquerade!
              Look, Don Quixote. See him as he truly is.
              See the clown.
              Look, what seest thou, Don Quixote?
              Look! Dost thou see him?
              A madman! Look, Don Quixote!
              See him as he truly is.