The Slant of Things

The one who is not against us, is for us.
Today the devil is big business, whether he is in the elevator, in the classroom or in Emily Rose.
We all know the devil likes the dramatic scene, but sometimes I wonder if all the fireworks may not be a diversion, a ploy
A famous poet once said that perhaps the greatest modern trick to the devil is to convince the world that he does not exist. Thus he and we open the door for sideways evil, evil on the slant
Evil that insinuates itself into our cultural milieu and enshrines itself as our greatest virtues
Evil that tears at the very fiber of the life of the family, the community, the nation with false understandings of freedom, happiness and liberty
Evil that pollutes the soul with lies of poor self image, stumbling blocks of interior warfare
And then the words of Our Lord …
The one who is not against us, is for us.
Undoubtedly the devil is still active and he works in ways that are sometimes, perhaps always on the slant.
But good is also active today
In the quiet heroism of lives of commitment and relationship faithfully led
In the generosity of benefactors and the boldness of saints
In crooked little men like Saint Vincent de Paul, in young women like Blessed Chiara Badano
True heroic good
But likewise slanted good
Good that comes from unexpected sources, from ill speakers and unbelievers
Good that triumphs over the rhetoric of evil in smiles and glances rather than ranting words
Good that comes in the silence of anonymity to hold our hands in times of trouble, to cool our fevered heads in times of turmoil and we are reminded in a slightly slanted way that …
The one who is not against us, is for us.
Indeed God is at work in all acts of Good, the manifest and the slanted
God continues to work in our world in ways that are sometime, perhaps always slant
And inch by calculated inch, we move ever-closer to this God, living and active
Living in us and in our weird neighbors
Active in countless ways we cannot even fathom
Living in that which we, in our shortsightedness, might consider dead. In the crippled, the blind, the small and the poor
Active in relaxed ways, taciturn ways, in the crooked, in the slant
The greatest poet of the nineteenth century wrote:
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---
The one who is not against us, is for us.