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Object of Grace

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Object of Grace

Tag Archives: les miserables

Alone in this old house: V2 B4 C1

11 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by oligapistos in Friend, Les Miserable

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cosette, les miserables

Here on the outskirts of the expanding Paris of 1848, JVG finds an obscure home to begin his life in seclusion with Cosette. What must those days and nights been like? His goal was to avoid relationships. Besides missing out on human companionship, he was left with his own uncalibrated mind, to make judgments.

Everyone strikes a balance  in friendships and acquaintences. JVJ was isolated.

Most unconcioussly decide how much life exposure and in what quality of connection they will live. It’s one thing to answer the big questions of why am I here? and How am I living? to myself. But to connect to someone else in order to share purpose and vision on a meaningful level is a much greater achievement. Such a connection requires patience and trust and grace.

Patience is a rare virtue in a friend. It means someone takes the time to be interested and really listen to what I am saying. Trust then means that I can count on that person to have my best interest at heart and to not violate a confidence. And grace means that the friend is persistent in a listening and loving posture until the very end – not cutting me off with a categorization, change-of-subject, or judgment. Who has found such a friend? Let me be that friend.

 

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Hated and Hating: V2 B3 C9

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by oligapistos in Difficulty, Les Miserable, Loving

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divine, les miserables, lincoln

Cosette’s rescue from hell was complete. She was transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of marvelous light. Pure experience of a child. She seems to so easily receive the great gift, and skipping ahead has so little struggle to make the switchover from hated and hating into loving and being loved. Really? And nothing is missing that would cause her to throw a tantrum? She seems to be the most 2D character in the book. This is the troubling aspect of the clean humanitarian message of Dickens and Hugo which appears to take away the power of an argument to love the downtrodden by basing it on their ideal innocence and virtue amid unusually sad circumstances. Rather, a more practical and potent argument points toward their image-bearing worth despite learned ugly habits.

I have been reading two other books. One about the The Enneagram personality theory which is basically about “the 9” personality types that grow from our childhood into the ways we now self-protect against perceived threats from our environment. Maybe I am a “4” on this scale. The point about the 4 that resonates with me is that I seem to have something missing which I am always trying to make up for by being and appearing to be special.

I am trying to will to be something that I already am without any willing or trying.

The point that someone like me must realize is that I am complete already. I am made in the image of God and accepted and unique to Him. Relax and enjoy it.

The second book is Abraham Lincoln: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership by Elton Trueblood. It is explained how Lincoln’s early childhood lessons in valuing human souls irrespective of their skin color because they are made in God’s image eventually carried the day in his heart. His constant study of the Bible led to his discerning the divine image in all humanity as the real impetus for emancipation. The value of the human is derived, not “self-evident” in the sterile Jeffersonian sense. And Lincoln viewed his own life as a part of the divine plan for men to be restored in due time. He was complete in the full color of his melancholy and awkward moments. And God used him to deliver a nation.

Colette is from this time forward to be loved. And so are we.

She is my child: V2 B3 C3

14 Thursday Dec 2017

Posted by oligapistos in Diversions from Seeing God, Integrity, Loving, Salvation, Suffering

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christmas, dickens, ignorance, les miserables, poverty, want

Hugo and Dickens were contemporaries. At this Christmas, the reading of this sad account of Cosette’s neglect resonates with Dicken’s classic haunting scene with the Ghost of Christmas Present:

“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!”

  • Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

I cannot deny it. JVJ could not deny it. In fact he gave his life for just one such child. He felt responsible. His responsibility came from someone else taking responsibility for him. So this chapter is the opening of the robe with the call that I hear this morning: “Yes, its a sad sight, and hard to believe how such a scene might be non-fiction. But you know it’s worse than this, and many times over, and such people are not even so far away from where I sit in comfort.”

The best we can do is to distract ourselves. And I do that pretty well I fear. At this Christmas, I recognize that the same collective union of mankind that was impacted by the star and birth announcing that God is with us (the same child who would grow to tell all how very near indeed He is), that same collective union binds us to reciprocate and own the ignorance and want for ourselves. It’s not someone else’s problem.

Cosette is not just Fantine’s child.

Cosette is not just Jean Valjean’s child.

Cosette is my child.

Poise in panic: V2 B1 C13

11 Thursday May 2017

Posted by oligapistos in anxiety, Leadership, Les Miserable

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confidence, les miserables, listening, panic, stress, vision

As panic set in amongst the French army and great numbers fled south from the battlefield: only a few remained to stand and fight. What was the right thing to do at the time? What was the best thing to do at the time? I don’t think there was any time to consider the questions – it just happened. Were those who fled were morally inferior than those who stood and fought to their deaths?

Perhaps the best way to discriminate is to say that the fleeing troops were less invested for the goal of the battle than the generals. And perhaps this is natural and necessary.

Consider now the dynamics of the workplace. In general the manager seems more invested in the strategic objectives than those who do most of the actual work.

Consider the family. The parents are more invested in the goals of training for right living and of quality family time than the children.

Any disfunction here means that there is an abusive situation where the leaders who have positional power wield it to their personal advantage. What is the leaders job if not to have greater vision and drive toward the big objective?

But poise in panic is a lofty goal. At a smaller scale, there is daily practice. I desire to have confidence in my daily living, stepping boldly and sleeping soundly. Yes, to recognize when I have been insensitive, and quick to apologize, but to be OK with some level of offense since people’s expectations are often ridiculous. Mainly,  good leadership living is to listen well to God and to others, and be slower to speak. And when I am bothered, to not jump to the extreme, and to dampen the extreme reactions of others.

Everyman by Himself: V2 B1 C12

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by oligapistos in Leadership, Les Miserable

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les miserables, loneliness, retreat, solitude, vulnerability

Sauve qui peut! The ordinary French troops fled in retreat.

The destruction of the Imperial Guard was now at hand and they bravely marched to their deaths. To what purpose? What was worth dying for to them? Their nationalist pride? No, really a dedication to their leader even unto death. And it is always emotional, such dedication. Seldom considered rationally.

But what of the retreat where “everyman” was for himself? Was it any better for them? What of the man who did escape and knew that he had fled while fellow soldiers stood and fought? Would he be better off? Or would his thoughts be haunted by his past actions and find no restful solitude? Once he forsook the brotherhood of a cause unto death, could he find relief in a peaceful life with friends and neighbors? I hear the soldiers often struggle to find such rest. But the one who has, in the heat of battle, chosen to be by himself may never find companionship again.

And in our normal life in peaceful suburb, the man who chooses selfishly to live for himself, not choosing vulnerability to be known and dependent upon another, must be everyman. And as he grows crooked and alone, unchecked by perceptions from others and left to his own misguided and twisting ideas regarding himself, he must experience the loneliness and regret without a friend who knows him.

Everyman for himself

Everyman by himself.

Wellington’s leadership: V2 B1 C6

22 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by oligapistos in Leadership, Les Miserable

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choices, Leadership, les miserables, purpose, wellington

Go for it! We can do this! I want to do this! To achieve a goal, the team members must have a common attitude. So much depends on the resolve of individual men/women in the battle. Here is an example with Wellingtons troops, many of them them novices, but apparently found that extra strength within themselves – they wanted it worse than the professional soldiers of Napoleon that they faced. And such a resolve was modeled for them by their leader.

In the chapter, Hugo describes Wellington’s unrelenting attitude, and he relates 3 statements made by Wellington to motivate his men. Basically, they are: (1) If I am killed, follow my example, (2) Hold that spot that you are on to the last man, and (3) We must not be beat because they will say bad things about us at home.

So let me generalize these three even further to apply them to myself as a leader at work.

  1. Be an example of enthusiasm, commitment, and hard work.
  2. Make sure everyone knows how their job is important and that the rest of the group depends on them.
  3. Extrapolate to the legacy – we can be the heroes – maybe unsung – but heroes nonetheless.
We can take that mountain,
Though we die on this ground.
While the storms assail us,
We can choose right now.

 

 

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