Skip to main content

Who am I? 24601!!!

Les Miserables is my favorite book outside the scriptures. I wish I could read French so that I could read it as it was originally written. Alas for my own deficiencies... Maybe someday...

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, it is the story of several characters whose lives touch and are bound to the life Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean is a poor man who is convicted for a crime and ends up serving many years due to that crime and also for attempted escape. As a convict, he is required to show his yellow passport at each city he enters, letting everyone know that he is a convict. He is able, through some pretty dramatic events, to hide the fact that he is a convict in the city of Montreuil sur Mer. In that city he is further able to become quite rich, using industry to bless the entire region. He eventually is elected mayor. Things look pretty good for him.

But one day he hears that a man who looks like him will be tried in a distant town for crimes that he, Valjean, committed. If this man were to go to prison in Valjean's place, no one would ever look for him again, assuming that it was he in prison. But Valjean, having become converted by the charitable act of a kind bishop, cannot in good conscience allow this man to go in his place. After much deliberation and debate, and after getting through much trial and difficulty, he is admitted to the chambers where the trial is being conducted. He honorably and nobly tells the truth and goes back to prison. His body is in chains, but his soul is free, unfettered from the stain of a guilty conscience.

The musical version of the story captures this internal struggle in the song Who Am I...

I particularly like the rhetorical questioning and introspection contained in the lines - How can I ever face my fellowmen, how can I even face myself again?

We are often faced with the choice to be honest and forthright or dishonest. It is damaging to one's ability to live with one's self to continue on in dishonesty, particularly when one is lying to one's self. I hope I can be honest with myself if/when I am ever faced with similar opportunities as was Jean Valjean.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ephesus

Paul got around. Ephesus is right on the Aegean Sea, on the coast of present-day Turkey. Yesterday he was in Galatia, which was much more towards the middle of Turkey. And when he actually wrote these letters, he was in Rome... So the man could travel. He probably walked. Today's item of interest comes from chapter one in Ephesians. Verses 18 and 19 are particularly interesting: 18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power This is not the first time Paul talks about an inheritance. In Galatians he talks about the inheritance that comes of being part of the Abrahamic Covenant. He notes that we are joint-heirs through and with Christ. In Ephesians, he uses the word "adoption" - that we are adopted as the Children of Jesus Chris...

Engaged

Three Dog Night got it wrong.  One is not the loneliest number. They were more accurate when they said Two can be as bad as one.  I really wonder how people can survive Without being fully engaged. How they live through each day Without the intimacy I so very much crave... Maybe I am unusual in my desire  To have this intimacy, To want to feel that soul So close to my own Sharing light and warmth, Sharing love and passion, Sharing life. Alas! Alas! Alas! For when I do seek to share It is often only to be rebuffed Denied Or used up, Sucked dry, And left an empty husk.  I want SO MUCH to share And all I have is the cold, digital world Of typing out a blog.

The Other Art

I'm not sure we appreciate photography as much as we do other art forms. Part of this comes from the reality that surrounds and permeates a photograph - it's very, very real, and the photographer strives for clarity and crispness in the representations. Perhaps this is why black and white images continue to be relevant - they strip away extraneous information (color) and leave us with something that is at once familiar and also non-existent - for nothing exists in black and white. Nothing. I also think that pictures are becoming too common-place... Everyone has a camera in their pocket, and while that's a very democratic thing (everyone can express themselves in a picture easily and readily, and can find an audience for these images, which are casually taken and casually viewed, and perhaps just as casually forgotten) I think that we embrace that casual attitude, and it spills over to all aspects of the media, making it impotent. So I read this article this morning: h...