Les Miserables

My favorite character in Les Mis is not Jean Valjean.  It's also not Fantine or Cosette or Marius or Javert or the innkeepers.  It's Bishop Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel:  Bishop Myriel or Monseigneur Bienvenu.

He appears and disappears in the first 30 minutes of the stage show, but he is the heart and soul of the play.

I read that his part in the book is actually the first 100 pages of the book.  Makes me want to read the book.  Maybe I will.  I've heard that his actions are consistently exemplary throughout, "showing that his intervention on behalf of Jean Valjean was part of a long track record and not a singular aberration."

I just love the part of the play where the bishop creatively forgives Valjean.  That act rings so true.  It rings so real.  It is so right.

Applying that approach in real life seems so much harder.  It's not that forgiveness comes that difficult to me -- it doesn't.  But I tend to want to "ensure" that the trespasser's future behavior will be better.  The bishop instead trusted that the act of grace would draw the trespasser a new route in life.  I want the ability to think and act that way.

What does God require of me?  To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with him.  That is what Bishop Myriel did.  Bishop Bienvenu.  Bishop Welcome.

Grace.