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Reflection for September 11, 2005

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The boy Pip in Dickens' story Great Expectations was a crestfallen lad. First of all he lived near the dreary marshes down where the Thames empties into the North Sea - a place made drearier by prison ships used to warehouse convicts. He was also an orphan; he had no memory of his parents or of the five young siblings whose graves he visits at the start of the novel. And he was being brought up "by hand" - the punitive hand of his cranky older sister, who married a local blacksmith named Joe Gargery.

And as if the frequent slaps of his sister were not enough to depress him, even at what was supposed to be a cheerful Christmas dinner he felt himself ganged up on by his sister's hypocritical guests Mr. Pumblechook, Mr. Wopsle and Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. As Pip himself narrates the episode, "They wouldn't leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me. I might have been an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched by their moral goads." When Mr. Wopsle finished saying grace with a reference to the company's being truly grateful, Mr. Pumblechook gazed at Pip and said, "Especially be grateful, boy, to them which brought you up by hand." And Pip remembers how: "Mrs. Hubble shook her head and asked, 'Why was it that the young are never grateful?' This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, 'Naturally vicious.'" The only relief Pip experienced came from Joe, a quiet, strong fellow but so kind, you wonder how he could possibly have wed Pip's sister. He did not join the others in their abuse of Pip. In fact, Pip makes us aware of Joe's quiet sympathy by remarking how, interspersed between the caustic comments of the others, Joe would quietly offer him more gravy - as a kind of a counterpoint to the meanness going round.

Now Pip wasn't likely to put up with that barrage of accusation for very long. As he got older, resentment built up, issuing in an aggressive effort to get even with everybody someday. And isn't that the story of the human race? Somebody says or does something that hurts us; this is followed by resentment which bubbles up into a sharp comeback which offends the first party who is now hurt and responds with a counter-judgment - and so begins this insane Frisbee game we call world history. And will we ever be able to break out of this cycle of mutual recrimination?

Jesus and St. Paul offer us a way. Let me give you an example. A long time ago I was engaged in a debate which came to an abrupt end when a colleague aggressively put me down, writing me off as stupid. Right away I felt hurt; then resentment welled up and I was about to devise an equally aggressive comeback when a voice seemed to whisper in my ear, "It's ok, Geoff. You don't have to prove yourself to anybody." Immediately my resentment vanished, I kept my cool, became even polite toward my adversary. Why? Because those whispered words revived within me my conviction of what St. Paul once declared: "There is nothing in all creation that can separate me from God's love for me - his absolutely gratuitous, gracious affirmation of my eternal worth. And so if God is for me - imperfect, even stupid though I may be - what does it matter what the world may think of me."

So when you feel sometimes offended and ready to be sucked into a Frisbee game of "judgment, resentment, counter-judgment ad infinitum and ad nauseam", cock your ear to catch the whisper of God's absolute affirmation of your very existence and settle down and appreciate your worth. Perhaps that whisper may come in words such as I heard or simply in God's quiet invitation to your battered ego - to have some more gravy.

-- Geoff Wood