The Scarlet Letter
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
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So I’m making Cassie’s dinner. Above everything else she loves bacon joint (what we old timers used to call ham shank) but I can’t give her too much of it at one go so I mix it with good dog food. While I’m cutting the bacon joint she’s standing by my feet, trying to be patient. I throw a few small pieces across to her eating area and she scorches across the kitchen to get them and promptly comes back for more while I’m deviously mixing what she likes with what she’ll eat only if there’s nothing tastier on offer.
I take the dish and set it down, she waits till I move away—so she can eat in privacy, don’t you know—and then tucks in but by now she’s well acquainted with the con job I try to work on her and she always give me that look after she’s smelled at it. “Oh well, I suppose there’s no chance that one day you'll put down nothing but bacon joint, is there?” She turns to the dish and begins to pick out the ham pieces as best she can, sometimes lifting little chunks of dog food out and dropping them beside her dish; they’re getting in the way of the real thing. I pretend I’m not watching her but she knows better and frequently she gives me that disappointed look (the one I credit to her anyway). “Yes, well okay, I suppose there has to be a mix but do you not think this is something of overkill?” she asks, as the number of little chunks around her dish gets bigger. She’ll eat it all by and by but only when she knows she has no alternative; I’m not going to change my mind. I tell her I’m doing it for her own good but…
I like the little girl and while I do try to please her I have to make some decisions for her; decisions she can’t and won’t make for herself but have to be made anyway. Wish I could talk to her and explain but even if we could communicate easily I’m certain she’d have her arguments all lined up. Overkill, I suspect, would be the word she’d use a lot as she'd beat the floor to emphasize her point. "Yes, but once again I have to say...overkill!"
Though I can’t confess to ever having been angry with God (maybe I have been, or at least had a serious sulk) I can easily see how people would think God is too keen on judgment or chastisement or whatever word we think suits best.
Must tough times last forever? Or even an entire lifetime?
Israel was sure that God had lost his balance; that he didn’t know how to exercise discipline even when he meant well. Isaiah 28:23-29 has God giving Israel a lesson in “common sense”. Had they ever seen a farmer plough three hundred and sixty five days of the year? Had they ever seen a farmer crush little herbs with a twenty-ton steam roller? Of course they hadn’t! That would have been nonsense, it would have defeated the purpose of the farmer who wanted a crop or wanted to provide herbs to garnish the meal. He’d plough long enough to turn the soil and then he’d sow seed and he’d choose a stick to beat little herb type things rather than destroy them. In short, a farmer would choose the right means for the beneficial end he was aiming at.
And who taught the farmer these things?
I can see that Cassie doesn’t like the dog-food but if she and I had a discussion about it and I wasn’t prepared to do what suited her, she’d have to end up trusting me; trusting that I’m working for her benefit—truly and wisely!
In the meantime she’ll give me those quizzical looks and we’ll direct some verbal protests in God’s direction. But he’ll say to us what I say to Cassie: Trust me!
