Smiley

I don’t think I like any literary character better than I like George Smiley, master MI-6 operative, who, over the course of three books finally defeats his Soviet nemesis, Karla. Smiley is actually featured in eight novels by John Le Carre, but three are known as the “Karla” novels because they center on his chess match with the ruthless Russian master-spy. Early on Karla comes into possession of Smiley’s cigarette lighter, a gift from his wife, inscribed: To George from Ann with all my love. Ann, the love of Smiley’s life, is a serial adulteress.  The notion is that while Smiley loves such a someone he has a weakness. Smiley finds out that Karla too has a weakness – a troubled daughter he loves and protects, hidden away in a mental institution in France. Smiley exploits this vulnerability to force Karla to defect. When Karla is taken into custody, he drops the cigarette lighter at Smiley’s feet. Smiley just leaves it there and walks away. He has gained the upper hand because he has ceased to care.

 

            “George, you won” his friend and protégé, Peter Guillam, says. “Did I?” Smiley replies, “Yes, yes, well I suppose I did.” Smiley has long ago abandoned the notion that the government he serves possesses the moral high ground. He has won because his opponent had someone he loved, and Smiley leveraged that love against him. Smiley won because he stopped caring about the one he loved. In the end, is that winning?

            Roy Orbison asserted, back in 1961, that love hurts. He was to discover the accuracy of this assertion when, in 1966 his beloved wife, Claudette, was killed in an automobile accident, and again two years later when his house burned down and his eldest son was killed in the fire. To love is to make one’s self vulnerable, even when no one tries to hurt anyone else. This is why most of us have developed armor, disguise, and defenses to protect us from the ravages really caring can wrack.  We teach ourselves not to care too much, and for some folks in our orbit, not at all. We all learn not to pick up Smiley’s lighter, because we know to care too much is to hurt.

  lazarus8          Jesus confronted the inevitability of this in Bethany in John 12. His friend Lazarus died, and had been in the grave three days before Jesus made the trip to be with the family. This was all part of Jesus’ plan as He intends to raise Lazarus from the dead. Yet, His dear friends Mary, and Martha spent so many days worrying over their brother, mourning his death, and wondering at Jesus’ seeming abandonment. Even Jesus can’t keep love from hurting – even when things go just as Jesus has planned.

            God is love (I John 4.8). It is not just that He does love, He is love. Thus God hurts. God is the father in the parable of the prodigal son who keeps looking down the road to see if his son will return. God is the husband in Hosea who takes his wife back from her prostitution. God is the father in Hosea 11 who despairs for His delinquent child - Who says “My heart is turned over within Me,” (v.8).

            God permits Himself no callouses. He never walks away. He loves, and loves, and loves. We hurt Him and He still loves. Because He is love.

 

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