I have not lived as good a life as Hope. Generally, with far less going for her, she has made better choices and so she has fewer regrets than I do. One way to deal with this truth is to deny it. My sins were more obvious, but after all, Hope has . . . and it is all nonsense. Some problems have a bigger impact than others. The other solution is to sit in a dark room and despair. This is a particularly unattractive solution. The “yuck” only gets worse when I begin to play mindless video games as therapy. This began with a weird Pac-Man knock off called “Chomp” and so Hope calls my whining, despairing moods “Chomp Mode.”
Chomp Mode is bad therapy, a bad use of my time, and only makes the problem worse..
My go-to-book on romance Jane Eyre helps me deal with my own past compared to that of my betters . . . which gets to be a long list when my friends are examined fairly.
Rochester, the bleak faux-romantic who starts the book as a self pitying loser, meets Jane, his moral superior who refuses to be sucked into his nineteenth century version of Chomp mode. He faces Jane’s sturdy holiness and says:\
“Yes, yes, you are right,” said he; “I have plenty of faults of my own: I know it, and I don’t wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself. I started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you — wiser — almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure — an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?”
This is true. When I was a boy, people would ask why bother not to sin if forgiveness was so freely available and the answer is simple: forgiveness is real, but the scars remain. One ends up not being so sorry for the scars, they can be transformed, but for the pain one caused others. This regret is a good thing and it should not go away this side of Paradise. The prodigal was fully forgiven, but the consequences of his wasteful spending remained- the elder brother would inherit the estate.
A sinner can often spot sin easily, but he must never pretend to be a great saint. He knows sins and faults because he has been there.
Why then can Rochester have hope? How can I love Hope?
Over the course of the novel, Rochester learns many lessons that make it possible for him to love Jane. Two stand out to me. Rochester learns that Jane cannot be his “salvation.” This is too much to put on any person. We had one messiah and his name was not Jane Eyre or Hope Reynolds. For me to put Hope in the position of “saving me” is to use a person for an end that she was not designed to fulfill. The evil of using people is compounded with the futility of trying something that cannot work.
Rochester has to return to God. Only God can forgive and begin to heal his heart. By the end of the book, without Jane, Rochester has learned to cry out to God and then God allows Jane, an independent woman, to choose to be the helpmate that Rochester needs. Rochester can demand nothing because he is not in a position to make demands, but Jane can choose to love him. God lets Jane choose and Jane chooses to be part of God’s plan for Rochester.
I love this because it reminds me that even if (as I believe) there are roles to marriage, I can demand nothing of my strong and independent wife. She gives a gift and I can receive it if she is brave enough for love.
Rochester also learns that he is who he is, but he need not be trapped. He cannot have what he wants, perhaps, at least not in his timing, but he can find new solutions. Jane loves Rochester, but when the law of God and man separates them, Jane finds a new life. She becomes a teacher and is as happy as she can be. Rochester also must find a way forward that does not entail growing worse in a vain attempt to grow better. One cannot repeat an error to correct the error.
These lessons help me. I can accept who I was, am, and have hope in the man I will be. I can be brave enough to love. I might have been, but still can be as good as Jesus intended me to be.
———————–
There is a lovely song based on these lines that often comforts me.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In