Perhaps a woman would not lose her head over the rule of law
Robert Bolk’s play “A Man For All Seasons” is about Sir Thomas More’s loss of his head when England’s King Henry VIII wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon because she did not supply him with a legal male to succeed him on the throne.The pope refused to grant Henry an annulment, so Henry broke with Rome and declared himself head of the Church of England, now known as the Anglican Church, through an Act of Supremacy.
More was Lord Chancellor of England, so he would have to approve of the annulment and Henry’s marriage to the beautiful young Anne Boleyn. A deeply principled lawyer and scholar, More refused to approve divorce or an Oath of Supremacy. More chooses to be silent because he concludes he cannot legally be prosecuted for treason to the crown. It’s a terrific play about real history and a great movie was later produced.
When I read Kathryn Schultz’s revealing article on Dolly Parton in the September issue of The New Yorker, I thought immediately of Bolt’s play because Dolly certainly is a woman for all seasons. At her death, she was the biggest employer in Sevier County, Tennessee where the small town of Pigeon Forge is situated on the banks of the Little Pigeon River, pressed into a valley.
Dolly was the fourth child of twelve raised by Avie Lee and Robert Lee Parton, who married at the respective ages of fifteen and seventeen. Born into extreme poverty, her doctor probably got paid with a sack of cornmeal when she was born. Her father never learned to read. Dolly was six when she started to sing in her grandfather’s church, where he was the preacher. At seven she started to sing with two homemade instruments, guitar and mandolin made from parts of an old piano she found in the woods. At ten, she was a big hit on the local radio station. Dolly never had a music lesson, never learned to read music. She ended up playing anything with strings, plus the recorder, harmonica and saxophone.
If you have seen the movie “Nine to Five,” the introduction had a typewriter included as background music to that song. It was Dolly playing on a typewriter! By the way, she was classified as a soprano, but she had a tremendous range and could plead, growl, yodel, belt and croon. At age thirteen, she was introduced at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on stage with Johnny Cash with the words: “We’ve got a little girl here from East Tennessee.” In poverty, she really had a coat of many colors.
Here is a singer who Had a 74-year career in an 80-year life
There can’t be another singer/entertainer who has won more awards regardless of genre. She is in so many Hall of Fames. “If there were a Fame Hall of Fame, she would be in that, too,” Schultz writes. She is also in the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.
Dolly has produced fifty studio albums and sold more than a hundred million records. She has starred in several movies and written or co-written memoirs, several children’s books, cookbooks, and even a novel. With Dollywood she has turned out to be the county’s largest employer.
She developed the Imagination Library charity, which sends a free book to one in seven American preschool children. In 2016, when wild fires hit her home county, Dolly sent a thousand dollars a month for six months to every family who had lost their home. In 2020, when the coronavirus hit, she donated a million dollars to help develop a vaccine.
Dolly seemed to enjoy being accused at times of being a dumb blonde, bimbo, trailer trash, and even a whore. She always smiled and laughed when she responded to those remarks, saying “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap! I’m not offended by dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. I also know I’m not blonde.”
Dolly and her life reminded me of an old Jewish proverb about the differences between men and women; “Women can do everything and men can do the rest.” She is truly a woman for all seasons.
Here are headlines in the week that men for no seasons created
These are just five of the hundreds of headlines covering disasters caused by men leading governments around the world who have excessive testosterone. The Accelerating Chaos in the Trump Administration, Trump Pivots Away From Ukraine and Toward Russia, Mayhem in France as Violent Rioting Spreads, Trump: Are the Wheels Coming Off His Administration? Pangram: Can We Trust AI Detectors?
On January 1, 2025, The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde delivered the sermon at the Washington National Cathedral at an interfaith prayer service. Near the end of her marvelous sermon, she directly addressed President Trump who was sitting right in front of her. This was her strong message to Trump.
“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President,” she said. “Millions have put their trust in you. As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives.”
“And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in our poultry farms and meat-packing plants; who wash our dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shift at hospitals,” she continued. “They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara, and temples. Have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. Help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.”
“May God grant us all the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, speak the truth in love, and walk humbly with one another and our God, for the good of all people of this nation and the world.”
This was a message of love for mankind from another woman for all seasons to a man who believes in only one season — a season of hate.
