“In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try to live so that our death brings no pleasure to the world.”
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
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Melvin: The word says that fathers are?
Sister: Evil.
Melvin: What else?
Me: Mothers? Are also evil?
Melvin: laughs well yes, we can infer. So what about children?
Sister and I: Are also evil.
This was my favourite takeaway from today's lesson. Completely taken out of context, it sounds ridiculous. But truly, if we believe that we are all sinners and the weight of sin, any sin, is death, and that Christ died for all, and if we believe that we are brothers and sisters in Christ and the same in sin and same in mercy, then yes. We are equally evil. But we want to be good, don't we? When we say what we say to whom we say it, we mean it with all our hearts. Even in prayer, we want to keep our promises, we want to change, we are sincere about the words we say to God. But after the "amen" we always fail. It's not that we are dishonest. It's just that we want to be good. We want so bad to be good. But it seems impossible to achieve "good" when we are inclined towards the bad. Like what Steinbeck said, we take short cuts. Intentions are there, methods are wrong. Lazy. Convenient. Bad. Being and maintaining "good" takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of courage to be humble, a lot of responsibility to be trusted, a lot of patience especially to be patient towards ourselves when we fail. "Good" takes a lot of time and work. Think of every obstacle as a training ground to strengthen that muscle. And thank God for His unending grace towards us.