Who would not want to be a friend of the rich and famous? But standing by the least among us, the little ones, the powerless, the odiferous, the ones you must wear gloves to touch--that is what counts among the friends of God.
--John Caputo
...trudging into the distance in the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus...the Lord out of dust had created him, had made him blood and nerve and mind, had made him to bleed and weep and think, and set him in a world of loss and fire... --Flannery O'Connor
8.28.2013
What Counts Among the Friends of God
The only true reward--if rewards are what you are after--comes of loving your enemies, those who are quiet unlike you and who indeed actually dislike you...The possibility of love turns on loving those whom it is impossible to love...
Who would not want to be a friend of the rich and famous? But standing by the least among us, the little ones, the powerless, the odiferous, the ones you must wear gloves to touch--that is what counts among the friends of God.
Who would not want to be a friend of the rich and famous? But standing by the least among us, the little ones, the powerless, the odiferous, the ones you must wear gloves to touch--that is what counts among the friends of God.
So given that this is Caputo, is he trying to put me in a double bind? After all, it is the extremely wealthy who I dislike, and I'm pretty comfortable among the homeless and the stinking. But then, I am enjoined to become skeptical of myself when I try to follow his first injunction, by loving the rich and their wormwood apologists in spite of myself. Good thing Caputo's implicit third injunction is, presumably, that I disobey him ... he has set up a double bind and generously prepared the way out. So....I guess he is a nice guy.
ReplyDeleteFollowing the One who turned the world upside down can make for interesting analytical ethics.
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