True, we live surrounded by pain caused by ignorance, carelessness, and malice--but also surrounded by beauty and order and love. Our lives and works were to draw an image of God on the canvas of the world, but that canvas has been grimed and slimed--but the same friction that wears away the good works to make room for new also wears away the evil. A little here, a little there; just a border skirmish(*) that events often seem to render moot.
Right now it's almost the same world, but with a new moment.
Fun little mysteries: a crow hopped down the edge of my neighbor's roof until it reached the gutter, from which it fetched a bright orange Cheeto and flew to the roof ridge to eat it. (maybe plundering a squirrel's stash?)
Encouraging actions: think about all the things that have to be organized and go right for a bus to show up on time at 9pm.
Perspective: just for fun I tuned in the local police dispatch. Thefts and drag racing and brandishing a gun, yes, but outnumbered by welfare checks--and lots and lots of dead air. (and a dead deer on a bike path)
And those brand-new eyes.
(*)
In King Lear (III:vii) there is a man who is such a minor character that Shakespeare has not given him even a name: he is merely ‘First Servant’. All the characters around him – Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund – have fine, long term plans. They think they know how the story is going to end, and they are quite wrong. The servant has no such delusions. He has no notion how the play is going to go. But he understands the present scene. He sees an abomination (the blinding of old Gloucester) taking place. He will not stand it. His sword is out and pointed as his master’s breast in a moment: then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part: eight lines all told. But if it were real life and not a play, that is the part it would be best to have acted. C.S. Lewis
1 comment:
I played that part in "King Lear" in college and was thrilled when Lewis mentioned it. Yes. You just do what is necessary to be done. There is nothing else for it. I seldom manage that in real life, as I get distracted with so many practical and tribal things that obscure moral reality. Yet I hope sometimes that the role of the First Servant shines through.
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