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In the opening scenes of The King's Speech, Prince Albert--The Duke of York--stands before a microphone, to deliver a public address at The British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1925, using a brand new communication devise that will carry his words, his voice, live to the "wireless sets" in living rooms around the world.
We see the anxiety on his face. His reticence. His awkwardness. His discomfort. Standing before the microphone, there is a lengthy and self-conscious silence. Why? Because Prince Albert stutters. And regardless of his stature or status, he is acutely aware that his presentation (a live broadcast of an international event) will be, for him, a personal humiliation. At the time, he doesn't know that he will be, one day, crowned (quite reluctantly) King George VI. Nor does it matter. At the time, standing before the microphone, he knows only that his stammering diminishes and shackles him.
No, none of us are ever going to be a king, or queen for that matter. But every one of us can relate to the self-conscious silence.
We know what it feels like to carry something that somehow confines us or restricts or diminishes us. Adding insult, we assume we should be able to "control" it.
We have all wondered whether our idiosyncrasies would be judged harshly or unfairly. As if that isn't enough, we carry around our own inner judge--and stickler--to scold us, "No, you can't do that!" "No, you don't have what it takes!"
We have wondered if certain hurdles or obstacles are, in fact, too much to surmount. And we wonder if it's time to give up.
Here's the deal: When we believe that our "label" is the core of our identity, we will feel ill-equipped, deficient and a fraud. "What were we thinking?" we ask ourselves--the justification quiz for any undertaking in relationship or art or work or calling or service. It seems that we can see only the flaws and blemishes--and every single one of them become indictments. It is no wonder that there are times when we too are rendered mute.
There are many forms of irony, but the one that surely applies to King George VI is the irony of fate. It is as if the gods, or Fates, were amusing themselves by toying with his mind, mocking his failings, reminding him that he was very much a mortal. It was, after all, almost impossible for him to pronounce the letter 'k', thanks to his debilitating nervous stammer. A cruel fate for a king. Even crueler, his reign coincided with a revolution in mass communication. For the first time in British history, subjects could listen to their monarch addressing them through their wireless sets, as if he were with them in their homes. (The technology didn't allow George VI to pre-record his broadcasts, as would be the case for the generations that followed. When he addressed the nation, it had to be done through a live microphone, without editing, an agony for a stammerer.) The layers of irony did not end there. Because he had been told that cigarettes might help with his stammer, George VI chain-smoked--and he consequently died of lung cancer at the age of 56 in 1952.
And the greatest irony of all? This vulnerable and stammering king proved to be exactly the right man at the right time.
The King's Speech may get some historical details wrong, but it's spot on when it comes to its central point: the closeness of the friendship between King George VI and his unconventional Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue. (A part of Logue's unconventional approach was to insist on addressing the Duke as Bertie, much to the Duke's initial discomfort. He also insisted that their consultations should take place at his Harley Street office rather than at the palace, in order to make the atmosphere less formal. The Duke reluctantly agreed and, over the course of 10 months, the two saw each other on 82 occasions, for sessions lasting an hour.)
There is a pivotal scene in Westminster Abbey during the preparations for the coronation ceremony. King George VI had just discovered that Lionel is not a doctor, that he has no "credentials or qualifications," and is even more discouraged that Lionel's peculiar methodology may not produce results. King George VI blames Lionel for leaving the nation with a voiceless king. Realizing the king's doubts and uncertainty, Lionel takes on the challenge and sits down in Saint Edward's Chair (the Coronation Chair).
BERTIE: What're you doing? Get up! You can't sit there!
LIONEL: Why not? It's a chair.
BERTIE: No, it's not, that is Saint Edward's Chair...
LIONEL: People have carved their initials into it!
BERTIE: That chair is the seat on which every King and Queen--
LIONEL: It's held in place by a large rock!
BERTIE: Listen to me !
LIONEL: Listen to you?! By what right?
BERTIE: Divine right, if you must! I'm your King!
LIONEL: Noooo you're not! Told me so yourself. Said you didn't want it. So why should I waste my time listening to you?
BERTIE: Because I have a right to be heard!
LIONEL: Heard as what?!
BERTIE: A man! I HAVE A VOICE!!!
LIONEL: Yes you do. You have such perseverance, Bertie, you're the bravest man I know.
With our cultural lens, it's all too easy to see this as a story about overcoming the obstacles to an authentic self--a self we are told that we truly deserve. So it is no wonder we so often feel trapped and unhappy. Thankfully there's a potion or product or program with just the ticket to unearth that authentic self (that we've been waiting for). Although truth be told, our unhappiness is only exacerbated when this chase for the authentic self sends us barking up the wrong tree, trying to close the deal as if our identity is something we possess, and not something evolving and emerging and growing and exquisitely human.
"Rain beats a leopard's skin, but it does not wash out the spots."
African proverb
Logue understood this. He tells Bertie, "When the Great War came, all our soldiers were returning to Australia from the front, a lot of them shell-shocked, unable to speak. Somebody said, 'Lionel, you're very good at all this speech stuff. Do you think you could possibly help these poor buggers?' I did muscle therapy, exercises, relaxation, but I knew I had to go deeper. Those poor young blokes had cried out in fear; no one was listening to them. My job was to give them faith in their own voice, and let them know that a friend was listening."
So that's it? He listened? Well, it certainly began there. He created a space--for what Henri Nouwen calls "befriending"--when you embrace contradictory parts of your self. In the case of King George VI, an utter vulnerability and the courage to live in the face of it.
I'm back on my island, spending the long days catching up in the garden. Our peonies have begun to bloom and the roses are close behind. Later this week, a Seattle area garden club will be visiting my garden. How interesting that I walk my garden paths today with a judgmental eye, seeing blemishes where just yesterday, I delighted in the profusion and finery of disarray.
Note: On February 28, 1952, just over three weeks after King George VI of England died, at age 56, his grieving widow, Elizabeth, took out her fountain pen and some sheets of Buckingham Palace notepaper and began to write to an old friend. "I know perhaps better than anyone just how much you helped the king, not only with his speech, but through that his whole life & outlook on life," she wrote. "I shall always be deeply grateful to you for all you did for him." The recipient of her letter was Lionel Logue, an Australian in his early 70s, who was also, as it turned out, close to the end of his life. Over the previous quarter of a century, this publican's son from Adelaide, without a formal qualification to his name, had come to occupy an extraordinary position within the inner circle of King George, father of the present queen, not just as a speech therapist, but also as a friend.
(1) Scenes from the movie -- elementsofcinema.com
(2) Commentary adapted from Nigel Fardale, The Telegraph
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