AMAZING GRACE

                I began rereading Les Miserables this week.  I ended last night with the moment of Jean Valjean’s change in soul, when he sees himself and and life for what he is, and in the illumination of Bishop Bienvenu’s mercy, he wills himself to change.  The words he cried, on knees, in the moment of his change, he cried, “I am a wretch!”

                “Then his heart burst, and he began to cry.  It was the first time that he had wept in nineteen years.

                When Jean Valjean left the Bishop’s house, he was, as we have seen, quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto.  He could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him.  He hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the old man, ‘You have promised me to become an honest man.  I buy your soul.  I take it away from the spirit of perversity; I give it to the good of God.’

                This recurred to his mind unceasingly.  To this celestial kindness he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us.  He was indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest assault and the most formidable attack that had moved him het that his obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency; that if he yielded, he should be obliged to renounce the hatred with which the actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or be conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man.

                In the presence of these lights, he proceeded like a man who is intoxicated.  As he walked thus with haggard eyes, did he have a distinct perception of what might result to him from his adventure at D——-?  Did he understand all those mysterious murmurs that warn or importune the spirit at certain moments of life?  Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the best of men, he would be the worst; that hit behooved him now, so to speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; that if he wished to become good he must become an angel; that if he wished to remain evil, he must become a monster?

                …the Bishop had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on emerging from the dark.  The future life, the possible life that offered itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with tremors and anxiety.  He no longer knew where he really was.  Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

                That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, and that it was no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to him and had not touched him…”

                Today, God double-tapped the message to the heart: repeating it in different timeless medium: “Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!  I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

                In a world focused on force and power, how often do we forget how often worlds are overturned—so often for the better—by simple acts of kindness, compassion: grace. 

                I once tried to change the world with all the force this nation could bring to bear, and in the last weeks, we have witnessed how fast a generation of force, statesmanship, and investment falls when absent the softer ways of love and genuine compassion that cause hearts to change in conviction and faith for a better way.  Force may break a man; but it will never elevate a soul. 

                After force, I tried to change the world—in no grand scale—by the softer way of simply being present to those around me, of giving good to others when, and as, spirit senses to share and show.  While I may never know the effects these small acts may bear, I know how I am changed by the simple kindness, grace, and love of others shown to me.  If I am anything like others, it is the small where hearts change. 

                “I am a wretch!”  But even the worst of this world may will to change.   

                Grace is something none of us deserve, but when it comes, we cannot deny the blessing that it is.  For two days now, I have ended and began in the contemplation of grace.  In our present world of coercions, divisiveness and judgment, maybe what we need most is something none deserve but all can give (and, should we be so blessed, receive): grace. 

                This, at least, is as I see.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.