Worldly Pleasures

Was reading Les Miserables the other night (my puppy needs to know where her name came from…), and I read a bit that I hadn’t noticed before. It was at the beginning, where the Bishop of Digne is being described.

In my humble opinion, the Bishop of Digne is one of the most important, but least known characters in Les Mis. If not for him, and the fact that he listened so closely to God, the rest of the story never would have happened. Jean Valjean would have remained a hard-hearted ex-con. The people Valjean provided jobs for would have gone without jobs, Cosette would have remained with the Thenardiers, Marius would have died at the barricades. So much good would not have happened without this one man’s response to God’s direction.

What I have noticed about him before is how Victor Hugo describes him as pious and giving. Any money given him, he gives to those who need it worse. He worries not about his comfort when he can give comfort to others. Even his housekeeper thought him mad, because of the way that he lived.

But early on in Hugo’s description of the Bishop, you’ll find this quote:
“His early years had been devoted to worldly pleasures.”

Not exactly the description you would expect of a man so devoted to God. But true nonetheless. Well, true for a fictional character. And true of many non-fictional people as well. Your past, what you have done in your early years, or even earlier this year, does not define you. Who you are now does. You can make a difference that even you won’t know about if you are willing to devote your life to God instead of devoting it to worldly pleasures. It doesn't say in the book if the Bishop knew what an impact he had on Jean Valjean. I love in the movie, where the Bishop comes to meet Jean Valjean as he dies. I think that was a brilliant way to portray it. Like God was showing him what a change he had made in the world. 

The Bishop had an option in his early years to continue on the path he was on, or to devote himself to God. He had very little in the way of worldly pleasures after he devoted himself to God, but he took pleasure in knowing that he did what he was called to do. 

What gives you pleasure?

Beauty and the Beast. Yes, again.

Beauty and the Beast is the ultimate Disney Princess movie for women and girls who don’t necessarily believe in waiting for their Prince to show up on a white horse. I was told at one point that if my prince rode up on a white horse, I’d probably push him off the horse, steal the horse, and leave the Prince behind. Probably fairly accurate. Though I would hope he didn’t have a white horse. Another colour would be preferable :~)

But Beauty and the Beast is not about your weak princess who needs her prince to rescue her from anything, be it a tower, or an enchanted sleep, or an evil witch. Belle makes her own way, not caring that the people in her little village think she’s mental. She reads, she is intelligent, she loves her Father and helps him with his inventions. She wants more to her life, and she isn’t willing to settle for Gaston, who is supposed to be such a catch, even if it means that she remains alone. His plan for her to be his “little wife” is nowhere near her radar, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

She dreams of meeting her “prince charming”, but then when she meets him, he’s not nearly so charming as what she hoped. But she sticks it out, not even knowing that he is the one. Thinking actually that he is more of a thorn in her side than anything.

In this way, they rescue each other, instead of simply the prince rescuing the princess. He rescues her from the mundane life she is living, and she rescues him from his curse, and the life he had been trapped in. She teaches him to love, and learns to love herself. The rescuing is mutual, not the stronger rescuing the weaker, but each of them both strong and weak, and exactly what the other needs.

This is always the sort of relationship I have wanted. Not a man to complete me, not a man to rescue me, but one to whom I can give as much as he gives to me. Someone that I can be myself with. Headstrong, loving, difficult, goofy, whatever. The good and the bad. But I definitely do not want a prince riding in to save the day. 

Horse crazy.

A few days ago, I had an interesting conversation with a Mom of a little girl who takes riding lessons through Leg Up. She was telling me about the differences between her girls, and their loves of horses. 

Her youngest, the one who is taking lessons now, is your typical horse crazy little girl. She and I have ridden in rain that is pouring so hard it soaks through our raincoats. The first time we rode in the rain, I didn't have a raincoat, and I ended up wringing water out of my hoody. She pays for her own lessons from birthday money that her Grandparents send her, and she asks me about the horses, and her lesson every time she sees me. She devours horse books and movies, and it is so much better when she is actually able to have her own riding experiences.

That was the problem with her older sister. She started out just the same. Absolutely horse crazy. Read the books, watched the movies, pretended she had horses. But she seldom had a chance to ride, or spend any time with horses. And so, other interest got in the way of horses. What was the point when all she had were books and movies, which are really just other people’s experiences? Without your own experience, it’s kind of meaningless, and there is only so much you can do. So she still likes horses, and will ride if she has a chance, but it’s more of an afterthought than something that she is passionate about.

I think a lot of the reason I never outgrew my horse crazy phase was because I got my own pony when I was in the middle of it. Being able to spend the time with my pony was better than any book. I’ve usually hated horse movies, because they’re far too sad, and horse books are often just as sad, or sappy. But I didn’t need to worry about that, because I could just go out and jump on my little pony and head out.

Needless to say, continuing that love of horses has taught me that life with horses is not the peaceful, romantic setting it is made out to be in books and movies. It’s hard, it’s heartbreaking, at times it is infuriating. But it’s worth it. And when you go into it at a young age, with so much love, by the time you figure out that it is not all sunshine and roses, it’s too late, because you’re hooked. You’re passionate about those crazy, big beasts that you ride, and you (and everyone around you) might as well give up on ever forgetting about them and moving on. 

What We’d Become

Watching I Am Legend (yeah, a lot of my thoughts come when I am watching movies) and their portrayal of what New York would look like after being abandoned made me think about decay and entropy, and the natural way of things to fall apart when not cared for.

Think of a city, and how much work it takes to keep said city in working order. The thing that struck me in I Am Legend was the grass growing everywhere. It turned every area where there should have been nicely manicured lawns into fields you could lose a horse in. How quickly would that have grown there, once there weren’t people there to care for those areas? Nature takes over very fast when outside influences cease.

That led me to think of my life. How much maintenance my life needs in order to stay neat and ordered, instead of turning into an overgrown field. And how quickly my nature, my sin nature, takes over at those moments that I do not keep up with maintenance. When I don’t pray as I should, or I don’t read my Bible as I should, I end up spiraling downward, the weeds growing up to choke out the flowers and plants that I want there.

The one part of the city that it showed not being overgrown was the corn field, which he uses for food. It was important, so he cared for it. If I looked at the spiritual aspects of my life as food, as the very means to my survival (which they are), I would not ignore them so easily.

Stepping back for a while to look at my life, and see how overgrown it is. I think I need to do some work, but that’s the first step, knowing that you need the work. Only when you’ve realized the weeds are taking over can you do some maintenance.