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My most treasured stories, the ones I revisit again and again, are full of flawed, three-dimensional characters with more than mere story-driving motivations -- their emotions and reactions are mirrors onto which I may safely project my own actions or that of another in order to gain a deeper understanding of human nature. Why would an abused child grow up to inflict the same wounds that infected their own beginnings? Why would a seemingly solid family man forsake his wife and children? Why would someone prominent in the public eye do things that would beg the world to tear them down and destroy them?
I have tremendous respect for the storytellers who are able to weave beauty and monstrosity into a character's personality. I can see great courage in disallowing the "white knight" of the story to pass through the pages of a tale simply waving Excalibur and confounding every purely evil enemy in his path. I guess that's why I especially love the work of writer/producer/director David Lynch. His characters begin as the paragon of innocence, but their purity is unraveled and their goodness challenged as they are caught up in the storms around them. Kyle McLachlan's characters in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks are my favorite because you desperately want the boy scout to succeed at his task without being tainted by his circumstances.
I find myself seeking explainations for seemingly irrational behavior right now because people that I've looked up to have disappointed me. One individual has made not one mistake, but a series of choices that required heaping amounts or deception and greed in order to feed his fantasies. His actions have already come to light -- some know more to the story than others, and rightfully so -- and I am watching the consequences of his choices work their way through the hearts of many, many beloved people.
The other person on my mind has made a precarious series of choices herself, albeit moreso within her heart than in physical action... so far. Her Jekyll/Hyde transformation has caused me to question everything I believed about the value of ambition and the pitfalls of following your heart down a path with no signs or handrails. Risks worth taking DO exist, and sometimes when God commands us to move, it's to a place that's out of our comfort zone so that we will depend upon Him to guide us there. In her case, though, I see no goodness or ultimate fulfillment in what she wants. I know without a shadow of a doubt that if she continues to pursue her desires, they will cave in and destroy all that she has worked for that is worth protecting.
If I could pinpoint the single deficiency that gives root to these terrible flowers of destruction, it would be this: love born not out of strength, but out of weakness and need. It immediately reminds me of Proverbs 9:17,18: “Stolen water is sweet;
And bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he does not know that the dead are there,
That her guests are in the depths of Sheol." Her meaning the incarnation of foolishness and indescretion.
By the same token, 1 Corinthians reminds me what true, fulfilling love looks like: it is "patient", it "does not act unbecomingly", and "does not rejoice in unrighteousness". The author of Phillipians wept as he wrote about those "whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things." I think he knew what it was to fight through life while growing heavier and heavier under the burden of his own poor, selfish choices. While he could be secure and encouraging in his own salvation, the scars from those past mistakes still function as reminders of our natural tendency to fail without the foundation of Jesus Christ and his teachings. Those who better understand how people fail are better equipped to forgive.
After the initial storm clouds of anger have cleared and I have a choice to make reguarding people like these two, what do I do? Do I fulfill my Christian duty by just praying for them? God, what would you have me do?
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