He did not seek to assume the mantle of Elijah, to shed a light of the future upon the misty turmoil of events or resolve the prevailing light into a single flame; there was in him nothing of the prophet or the mystic. He was a simple soul who loved, and that was all…
’Love one another.’ To him everything was contained in those words, his whole doctrine, and he asked no more. - Victor Hugo, “Les Miserables”, part one, book one, chapter 14
Not a philosophical man, or one bent on arguing the details of dogma, theology or doctrine. Myriel was a man who simply loved God and loved his neighbor. That didn’t mean he was perfect, but the portrait we have of him in these first fourteen chapters is one that religious leaders everywhere could learn a lot from.
I think of the pastors here in America who loudly proclaim who God hates and who we should hate and why hate is called for. Loud. Brash. Nasty. Ugly. They can open their bibles and point to chapter and verse, find a text and make it the pretext or subtext for their own twisted tale of a dualistic system where the vast majority are out and the very tiny few (who all happen to look like him, and yes, it’s almost always a him) are in and secure and loved… but it’s not a love that overflows and spills out and winds it’s way down into an ever broadening river that is lined by trees who flower and fruit with leaves that heal the nations like the river of love described by John the Revelator. No, this is a love that is stingy and precious not because of it’s quality, but it’s scarcity. You can lose it at any moment, so you have to prove you belong to the few by pointing out the ones who don’t in an ever-shrinking circle of fear and loathing.
The bishop wasn’t perfect, but I’d trade all the bullshit of American Evangelicalism and the terrible scars of hatred and bigotry it has left all over this land for a little bit of what the bishop had to offer. If we could just get a ground swell of “simple souls who love” we could change the world.