I don't know why I am writing this. I have had trouble for two weeks finding the right inspiration for the next post. I had Valentine's Day all lined up... You know I wrote The Last Valentine, and was going to share some history of that magical first novel to be made into a Hallmark movie for next year; history few know about... but for some reason, with all that is troubling the world, and just life, the lover's holiday got by me.
So I share with you this... about finding peace in these toubled times. It is something I understand. I have had some experience getting through tough times and major reversals more than once. The lessons learned form Victor Hugo's masterpiece come to mind as I consider the feelings of my heart right now.
Jean Valjean’s Choice
I love the line in the film version of Les Miserable when the Bishop protects Jean Valjean from going back to prison.
The Set Up: We see Jean Valjean in the opening scene, a man wearing rags and asleep on a bench in a quiet French village at the turn of the nineteenth century. He is an “ex-convict,” just freed from a French prison where he had spent 19 years at hard labor for stealing bread as a hungry and homeless youth. Bitter, he must make his way to his home town by foot in three days and report to the Parole Officer, where he will be denied work because he is an ex-convict, and thus find himself once again in a position to starve.
An old woman prods him to wake up and tells him, “You can’t sleep here.” He tells her, “Leave me alone…” and that he hasn’t eaten and no one will give him a place to sleep. “You haven’t tried that door. Try that door,” she says pointing.
It is the local Protestant Bishop and his wife. Valjean is fed and offered a place to sleep. His smallness of soul and bitterness cause him to do something that could land him back in prison, and yet he, for the first time in his life, will be shown “mercy;” by the very Bishop he beats and robs. The Bishop teaches Valjean a lesson that will not only serve him but changes all those lives who come into contact with Valjean forever. Watch this collage of clips from the movie…
The Bishop’s Mercy:
Bishop: “Now Don't Forget, Don't ever Forget, you've promised to become a new man.”
Jean Valjean: “Promise? What, Why are you doing this?”
Bishop: “Jean Valjean my brother, you no longer belong to evil. With this silver, I have bought your soul. I've ransomed you from fear and hatred, and now I give you back to God.”
Jean Valjean’s Lesson Learned:
The movie picks up years later. We see Valjean is a wealthy hermit of a man, having worked his way from the investment the Bishop made in him to owner of a factory. Though he prefers being left alone, he is so well respected for his honesty, tender regard for others, and humility, the people of the village of Vigot near Paris elect him Mayor. We see Jean Valjean as a good and merciful man who, like a ripple effect, adopted the goodness of the old Bishop and passes it forward in this new life of his.
Just as he thinks some peace may finally be his permanent reality, into his life comes a former enemy, a prison guard named Javert, now assigned to Vigot as “Inspector” (Chief of Police.)
To make a long story short Javert, his nemesis for the rest of the story, finds out that the mayor is really an ex “convict” by the name of Jean Valjean, and he is determined to see that he goes back to prison. The crisis continues as now Valjean must escape, create a new identity and seek some peace. Over the next 20 years he almost finds it and then Inspector Javert finds Valjean in Paris. Caught, he tells Valjean, who has committed no crimes, yet certain a criminal can never change: “It's a pity the law doesn't allow me to be merciful.”
The truth? Mercy is a choice. Forgiveness is a choice. Love is a choice. Only those who must follow some heartless list of rules exact punishment upon others long after the turbulent water has passed under the bridge once crossed by two who could not reconcile their differences.
Inspector Javert inspired fear in Valjean. He represented everything evil, unjust, and unfair about Jean Valjean’s earlier life.
Fear? The world has changed. Fear among the people across the globe is palpable. Many are faced with losing everything, and many more have had all their retirement and savings wiped out.
There is something we can do about it. Something that may seem small right now... It doesn't have to do with "getting" more stuff, or rescuing "things" but with giving away something more valuable than the financial and material things people are so fearful of losing. And... strangely, this very thing I recommend will begin to set the world right for you, and "getting things" restored that are lost will become not burdensome but a new adventure.
It is giving that unlocks getting: Is there someone who wronged you? Is there someone who has fear of you? Is there anyone who lacks peace because of hurt feelings, even if they are in the wrong? Does someone "owe" you? These are faced with wondering where God is for multiple reasons right now. They are filled with uncertainties about the future. They carry burdens and may carry one you do not intend for them to still carry. Release them...
The Bishop had told Valjean, after Valjean explained his torment for stealing to solve his hunger and the price he had to pay: “Man can be unjust.” Yet, the Bishop "freed" Valjean from his fears, and his only experience; the unjust nature of man and things, by a simple act of generosity and kindness and forgiveness...even though Valjean did certainly not "deserve" it at that moment.
Jean Valjean had to begin anew three times in this story. Jean Valjean was given multiple choices to get rid of Javert; twice violently, (and to all appearances no one would have missed the implacable Inspector) yet he would not allow the gift of the Bishop to become wasted. He spares Javert who then still will not let go...
In the end the victory was Valjean’s as he would not allow total destruction of one part of his life become the reason for an entire life of self-pity, fear, doubt and despair. The victory was priceless.
The wealth Valjean accumulated over time never solved the underlying problems of his fears… And with the hard-earned wealth he could not have purchased the peace of mind and heart that he longed for without giving something else away. It was giving away that which was given to him; passing it along...that gave him meaning and well-deserved peace from fear at last.
It was the reliance upon a power of mighty mercy that was the gift the Bishop gave to Jean Valjean and I recommend to you… It was Valjean’s losing himself for others, and giving mercy and forgiveness away that gained him every other victory.
Lose everything (I have twice) and your health (twice there also) yet do not lose your soul and hope. “Stuff” can been gained again, and health restored, but the satisfying peace that comes from knowing your heart is right with the world… that is priceless.
We can all have claim to it… Like the silver given to Valjean from the Bishop, we have the redemption from fear of one who did no harm; one who reached out to all to have his palms pierced, and who still reaches out to calm troubled hearts... if we will reach back, and in turn pass it along to others.
James Pratt
www.jmpratt.com
www.powerthink.com
Showing posts with label healthy love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthy love. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sunday, August 24, 2008
LIKE AUTUMN IS TO LIFE
SEPTEMBER...
It sneaks up on you, though it got cold sometimes where I grew up. I remember one winter where it was it dipped into the 50’s almost every night. It would be hard to tell the seasons were changing by the turning of the leafs though; oak leafs simply fell to the ground revealing the twisted, ghostly limbs of branches which had already seen decades more time on earth than I might in a lifetime. Lime green eucalyptus leafs don’t offer a sign that summer has come to an end and autumn is upon you either. The cedars and evergreens, popular in landscaping along the coasts of California, are the tint of jade in October as they are in April.
Just outside Los Angeles, where at barely 800 feet above sea level in Simi Valley, the Santa Anas alerted me to Fall’s approach, but the hills were as brown then as May. Fire season meant the hills would burn the scrub off as the Santa Ana winds, up to fifty miles an hour, would whip through the dry valleys; but even that didn’t stop the Football game against Hart High School one October night in
1970...
The fans left to protect their homes as fire ringed the hills; fire so bright the new night lights in the stadium we had earned through selling chocolate bars could have been turned off; yet we played on. I never quite figured that one out. Of course the Hart High School team couldn’t return home over the Santa Susana Mountains on the new 118 Freeway because of the fire (later to be named for Ronald Reagan, our former Governor and actor who made “B” Westerns in these hills.) We couldn’t even get home after the game, so many roads were shut down. So we went to Chi Chi’s Pizza to eat and to watch the hills burn down, then each of us walked home through the smoke and fire-lit cinders whipping around us on LA Avenue. It was exciting to water down our roofs that night, play fire-fighter too, as September just closed its door.
That was a bad one. Usually one or two homes got it. In 1970 their were dozens burned down and even murderer Charlie Manson’s hideout just miles away, the Spann Movie Ranch, burned to the ground in the Fall of 1970. But life went on, and we barely noticed the oak trees regain their tiny hand-shaped leafs, or that the Eucalyptus dotting either side of LA Avenue had lost any of their tiny feather-like emerald ones. Leafs don’t change on evergreens.
I paid attention to February and May; those months as turning points in a year that alerted me to so much change coming. It meant tennis season and the fun-filled days at the beach, and summer jobs, and growing up, and dating pretty girls, and maybe playing another season of Football approached; and a boy needed to stay in shape for all that. Life was long as the days were too…
But September? It had no meaning other than another school year. And I had a long life ahead of me, and leafs falling weren’t a gage for such things, and colors were browns, except for those found in little suburban ranch home lawns and gardens of roses, gardenias, flowering ice plant, periwinkle, Japanese boxwood, and the ubiquitous juniper bush.
I recently visited Simi Valley, and stayed with Mark May on a hill that burned to the ground in 1970 while he and I played football. We reminisced. We looked out over the valley we grew up in and loved, and for a moment we hadn’t grown to be our father’s age…
You remember Mark May? The part-time 4th grade bully in MOM, The Woman Who Made Oatmeal Stick to My Ribs who would become one of my best friends? I uncovered the single home movie from my last football game, November 6th 1970 – We watched and laughed, and became boys again...impressed with out lithe running and skills which included getting clobbered only to get up and take it on the chin again, and again...
I got hurt, never put shoulder pads on again, but it was the game of my life. I played my heart out on a muddy field against a team boasting of another great friend, the team captain from Newbury Park High School, Mike Carlisle. We didn’t know he would have two "Falls" left to live back then… Or that our quarterback Phil, would see his last autumn season just one year ago.
Ah September. Where did it go? The quiet approach, hardly noticeable, then…
Another approaches. I live in the mountains now. It snows here. Leafs turn amber gold and the aspens quake among the evergreens. I became as old as some of the oak branches back home on the coast, and quake at the cold that is coming upon us as I realize the golden youth of so many Septembers is but a dream…
“Jim”
August 2008
www.jmpratt.com
Coming in 2010: WHEN THE LAST LEAF FALLS
It sneaks up on you, though it got cold sometimes where I grew up. I remember one winter where it was it dipped into the 50’s almost every night. It would be hard to tell the seasons were changing by the turning of the leafs though; oak leafs simply fell to the ground revealing the twisted, ghostly limbs of branches which had already seen decades more time on earth than I might in a lifetime. Lime green eucalyptus leafs don’t offer a sign that summer has come to an end and autumn is upon you either. The cedars and evergreens, popular in landscaping along the coasts of California, are the tint of jade in October as they are in April.
Just outside Los Angeles, where at barely 800 feet above sea level in Simi Valley, the Santa Anas alerted me to Fall’s approach, but the hills were as brown then as May. Fire season meant the hills would burn the scrub off as the Santa Ana winds, up to fifty miles an hour, would whip through the dry valleys; but even that didn’t stop the Football game against Hart High School one October night in
1970...
The fans left to protect their homes as fire ringed the hills; fire so bright the new night lights in the stadium we had earned through selling chocolate bars could have been turned off; yet we played on. I never quite figured that one out. Of course the Hart High School team couldn’t return home over the Santa Susana Mountains on the new 118 Freeway because of the fire (later to be named for Ronald Reagan, our former Governor and actor who made “B” Westerns in these hills.) We couldn’t even get home after the game, so many roads were shut down. So we went to Chi Chi’s Pizza to eat and to watch the hills burn down, then each of us walked home through the smoke and fire-lit cinders whipping around us on LA Avenue. It was exciting to water down our roofs that night, play fire-fighter too, as September just closed its door.
That was a bad one. Usually one or two homes got it. In 1970 their were dozens burned down and even murderer Charlie Manson’s hideout just miles away, the Spann Movie Ranch, burned to the ground in the Fall of 1970. But life went on, and we barely noticed the oak trees regain their tiny hand-shaped leafs, or that the Eucalyptus dotting either side of LA Avenue had lost any of their tiny feather-like emerald ones. Leafs don’t change on evergreens.
I paid attention to February and May; those months as turning points in a year that alerted me to so much change coming. It meant tennis season and the fun-filled days at the beach, and summer jobs, and growing up, and dating pretty girls, and maybe playing another season of Football approached; and a boy needed to stay in shape for all that. Life was long as the days were too…
But September? It had no meaning other than another school year. And I had a long life ahead of me, and leafs falling weren’t a gage for such things, and colors were browns, except for those found in little suburban ranch home lawns and gardens of roses, gardenias, flowering ice plant, periwinkle, Japanese boxwood, and the ubiquitous juniper bush.
I recently visited Simi Valley, and stayed with Mark May on a hill that burned to the ground in 1970 while he and I played football. We reminisced. We looked out over the valley we grew up in and loved, and for a moment we hadn’t grown to be our father’s age…
You remember Mark May? The part-time 4th grade bully in MOM, The Woman Who Made Oatmeal Stick to My Ribs who would become one of my best friends? I uncovered the single home movie from my last football game, November 6th 1970 – We watched and laughed, and became boys again...impressed with out lithe running and skills which included getting clobbered only to get up and take it on the chin again, and again...
I got hurt, never put shoulder pads on again, but it was the game of my life. I played my heart out on a muddy field against a team boasting of another great friend, the team captain from Newbury Park High School, Mike Carlisle. We didn’t know he would have two "Falls" left to live back then… Or that our quarterback Phil, would see his last autumn season just one year ago.
Ah September. Where did it go? The quiet approach, hardly noticeable, then…
Another approaches. I live in the mountains now. It snows here. Leafs turn amber gold and the aspens quake among the evergreens. I became as old as some of the oak branches back home on the coast, and quake at the cold that is coming upon us as I realize the golden youth of so many Septembers is but a dream…
“Jim”
August 2008
www.jmpratt.com
Coming in 2010: WHEN THE LAST LEAF FALLS
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