Reading Revelation & Les Mis

My day is divided now between prepping for Revelation and reading Les Miserables. For recreation, I’ve found about sixty of the old B&W Perry Mason in the CBS video collection, for free. So I go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

In reading Revelation, I’ve gone back and read some of the Hebrew apocalypses in Daniel, Zechariah and some of Ezekiel, who was certifiably off his rocker. The encouraging thing is, God can use anyone. In a time of upheaval, a psyche undone may be the best vehicle for revealing truth.

This time through the last book of the NT, I’ve concentrated on the big ideas. For example, in studying the judgments as a unit, it’s clear that they had a purpose: to urge people to come to repentance before it was too late. Therefore, the first two series pause after the first four calamities. God assures us that God’s own are doing fine. This is poignant when you realize that about AD 95, a whole generation of Christians had died. Were they lost?

Not only weren’t they lost, but they will come first!

So throughout these scenes of incredible judgment, flows the soft melody of God’s love, securing and comforting the saints. The majestic choruses of heaven echo in the hearts of God’s people, even on the mean streets.

There are so many references in Les Mis to French history, and geography, that go over my head. I’m reading the Wilbour translation, which was done so quickly. You can’t help but wonder how good it is. Hugo is daunting. To develop a character he takes five or six long chapters of history, of literature, of politics; in that nest he places the individual character.

So why not cut out all the 19th century verbiage? I think it’s in those long passages that he really paints the world as he sees it. This isn’t just an incredibly well plotted drama about an escaped convict. It’s about a society, about what we need to become human. And of course, it’s the contradiction between law (Inspector Javert) and grace (Valjean).

The pity is, that many of our young students are learning computer programming and web page design, which I admire, but their souls don’t get stretched by big ideas and great hearts like Hugo’s.

For example, the following description of young Marius, Cosette’s future love interest (Project Gutenburg):

For many great deeds are performed in petty combats. There are instances of bravery ignored and obstinate, which defend themselves step by step in that fatal onslaught of necessities and turpitudes. Noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye beholds, which are requited with no renown, which are saluted with no trumpet blast. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are the fields of battle which have their heroes; obscure heroes, who are, sometimes, grander than the heroes who win renown.

Firm and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a step-mother, is sometimes a mother; destitution gives birth to might of soul and spirit; distress is the nurse of pride; unhappiness is a good milk for the magnanimous.

God’s hands, with destitution, can sculpt great souls. But how many thousands are simply ground into dust? Gandhi said, “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”