I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, (Philippians 1:3)
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long, we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealing with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)
We’re just past the Halloween season, when “ghosties,
and ghoulies, and long-legged beasties”[1] caper,
creep, and crawl in our imaginations. Sometimes, I think we should celebrate monsters
more often, because we live among so many. Like Dr. Jeckyl or any of a number
of victims, those who look at us in the mirror, eat breakfast with us, and pass
us on the streets can reveal their ghoulish or brutish selves within an instant.
They tear us to shreds and in the next moment, are their own beloved selves
once again and asking why we are on the floor writhing in pain. Until the next
time. C. S. Lewis’s description (above) of the people we encounter is
magnificent, but we must remember that there is within us a monster that is
every bit as fiendish as those that rend us.
When might we catch sight of these monsters, in
the mirror or on the street? There are some songs they are apt to sing, like
birds. Each has a wide range of variations. Here are a few of the most oft sung:
I was just joking.
Did you hear …?
I’m not saying anything against anyone, but…
…I’m a good person…
Everyone deserves to relax/have fun once in a
while…
We’ve all been these monsters, and the victims of
ourselves and other monsters like us. Some delight in declaring our monstrosity
and imagine themselves to be VanHelsing or Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. (That was
all much too much fun.)
So, with so many monsters around and within us,
why should we thank God for others in our remembrance of them? How can we possibly
thank God for the miniature Hitlers, Stalins, McVeys, Vicks, Dahmers, and jet-flying
terrorists in our lives? Or for the zombies, vampires, werewolves, and ghosts
who populate our homes, schools, grocery stores and churches? And do we imagine
that somehow, the people to whom Paul wrote in Philippi were somehow perfect
saints? It seems to me that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church about their
belief in their superiority to him, and he noted that he wasn’t a perfect
saint, so how much less are we?
The first reason we need to thank God for them is
because God put them in our path for purposes – not just one purpose. He did it
for His glory, for our growth, and for their growth, and for the benefit of
others. There are probably reasons that fit into subsets of those four reasons,
but no matter how negative and harmful they are (or wish to be) they are meant
as a blessing to us, and we to them, and both of us to everyone else. The
blessing might be a hard one, but what they mean for evil, God works for good.
[1] With thanks to
Alfred Noyes who included the phrase as part of a “Quaint Old Litany” in the preface to The Magic Casement: An Anthology of Fairy Poetry. Edited, with an
introduction, by Alfred Noyes
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