Last week John preached at the Cathedral. The topic
was I Was Naked and You Clothed Me, and he told the story of Noah's sons. Noah had fallen asleep in his tent, naked and drunk, and his second son Ham decided to spread the word. But Ham's brothers took a different tactic. They brought a garment, and walking backwards with it on their shoulders they covered their father. They had no interest in observing his shameful behavior..
The idea of bending over backwards to avoid witnessing another person's mistakes is timeless. Sheer numbers beguile us to pay more attention to the continual stream of wrong doers around us rather than be reflective of our own few
missteps.
I am chagrined to admit to myself how often I will be clearing the dining room table and shake my head at the papers John has left there, then surprisingly come across a pile of fabric not put away. Or I will notice a spot on his
tie and be tempted to point it out to him, then look down to notice the remains of mustard from a hasty lunch on my sweater.
The concept of putting a good interpretation on someone else's wrongs is avant-garde. Yet it is the turning point in
the life of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, when the priest spins an explanation around his theft of the church silverware. In the movie Ever After Danielle is treated cruelly by her stepmother her entire life, but when the prince catches the woman in a bold faced lie Danielle intercedes.
"She was misinformed."
At the end of my life's story I hope to have practiced bending over backwards often enough to be as limber as a
dancer.
But those who have charity
hardly notice the evil in another person, but instead notice all the goods and truths that are his; and on his evils and falsities they place a good interpretation. Of such a nature are all angels, it being something they have from the Lord, who bends everything evil into good.
Emanuel
Swedenborg, Heavenly Secrets 1079
