WHAT HE REALLY THINKS OF YOU: There’s a striking passage in one of Harold Bloom’s books–probably The Western Canon? or is this just something he’d say in his lectures? not sure… Ratty will know–where Bloom compares King Lear and the portrayal of Yahweh in the Old Testament. He basically says, “These characters both come across as mad old kings, relentless in their unreason; and yet the most admirable characters are devoted to them.” I can’t remember what he concludes about Yahweh, but he does, I think, make the point that Cordelia’s and the Fool’s devotion says something not only about Cordelia and the Fool, but about Lear.

I was thinking about this the other day, and it prompted a thought I hadn’t had before. You’ve probably grasped this already, but it was quite powerful for me: Christ’s devotion to us, His sacrifice for us, doesn’t only say something about who He is. Because He knows us best, it also says a lot about who we are. We may be mad old kings, “poor bare forked creatures,” but we command the loyalty and love of God Himself.

God’s love can seem as silently inscrutable as Cordelia’s, as patiently needling as the Fool’s. But it’s also as constant as theirs. It’s what He really thinks of you.