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Blessed are the thugs?
I was preparing to post this mostly non-political commentary on Wednesday, and then I heard the news that an ICE agent had shot and killed a woman, Renee Good, in Minneapolis, my home town once removed. I was saddened upon the news, and then angered when I heard the President of the United States, the Vice President, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, all ignorant of the facts, rush to condemn Ms. Good as a domestic terrorist largely responsible for her own death. Well, we all saw what we saw and have formed our opinions, but in America we regularly rely on groups of people to look at the facts of a homicide and determine guilt or innocence. They're called juries. Sadly, the FBI and ICE, once they finish investigating themselves, will most certainly exonerate the shooter, so unless the State of Minnesota can somehow find a workaround, the Federal agent involved will never appear before one.
Without being able to express exactly how, I know that the following passage from C.S. Lewis is somehow relevant to what happened in Minneapolis, that if someday we all must account for ourselves before a living God, then these temporal judges will themselves be judged. I don't presume to know how they will fare, but I am quite certain that when an angry posse is given guns and masks, and then authorized to shoot their fellow citizens, bad things will happen; that they they have been placed in a position of extreme moral hazard; and that yet another facet of what is great about America will have been defaced by these self righteous, kind-to-themselves, and quite frankly lousy Americans.
And now for the original post:
Decades ago a very evangelical friend, hoping in part to salvage my lapsed-but-not-fallen Catholic soul, recommended I read C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. It's a series of seven short books set in a magical world where four children encounter some pretty evil characters and a series of moral challenges. The final book, The Last Battle, culminates in an apocalyptic battle between good and evil, between a Christlike lion named Aslan, and Tash, the Devil. At the end, everyone must account for themselves and in the passage below, a terrified apostate stands before Aslan to be judged.
But instead of condemning him, Aslan lets the man off the hook. It's almost as though Aslan had read the Beatitudes (or possibly even written them, himself?). I read Chronicles of Narnia 40 years ago, and this is the part whose details I still vividly recall. I post it here because, really, this is the God I hope for, if one exists. And in today's America, also the one we need.
From The Last Battle, final book of Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis.
Lightly edited (changing "thou" to "you," for example.)
So I went over much grass and many flowers until there came to meet me a great Lion. His hair was like pure gold and the brightness of his eyes like gold liquid in a furnace.
I fell at his feet and thought, “Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion will know that I have served Tash all my days.” But instead he bent down and touched my forehead and said, “Son, you are welcome.”
But I said, “Alas, Lord, I am no son of yours but the servant of Tash.”
He answered, “Child, all the service you have given to Tash, I account as service given to me.” Then I overcame my fear and questioned him and said, “Lord, is it true, then, that you and Tash are one?”
The Lion growled so that the earth shook, and he said, “It is false! Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which you have given to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is good can be done to him. Therefore if any man swears by Tash but keeps his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he knows it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man does a cruelty in my name, then it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Do you understand, Child?”
I said, “Lord, you know how much I understand.” But I said also (for the truth constrained me), “Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.”
“Beloved,” said the Lion, “unless your desire had been for me you would not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”
This, then was the marvel of marvels. That he called me, “Beloved.”
