Last night, with a complete inability to make myself sleep, I finished reading Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. The following quote comes from the book. For the record I don't agree with the quote, but found it to be fascinating nonetheless. The book obviously has autobiographical components, in particular the protagonist who tries to reconcile his Catholic faith with his unrepentant adultery. The following comes after he sets himself the impossible aim of pleasing the wife he does not love:
"Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation." p.62
I won't go into great detail on the book, considering nobody has probably read it. All I will say is that Greene does a great job of demonstrating how futile it is for us to try to make everybody else "okay." It's ironic that a person can fully believe in a God who is capable of providing an afterlife, yet doesn't believe that same God is fully capable of looking out for his people. Apparantly he can only be trusted with the miraculous, but the mundane is too difficult... Sounds idiotic and yet, it sounds a lot like us, doesn't it?
Peace,
Matt
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