Invictus

 

The blind and the lame.

In my diary from 1982, I listed my reasons for doubt about Christianity. These may be of some interest.

First objection: “religion is a crutch.” Surely it is nobler to face life as it is, with no illusions that everything will turn out all right. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate

I am the captain of my soul.

I answer that, if you are lame, is it smart or brave to refuse a crutch? Isn’t it smarter and braver to face your own infirmity, and to improve?

If you are not lame, do you have any right to congratulate yourself for it?

Was it thanks to your own efforts if you were not struck lame with childhood polio? Was it thanks to your own efforts if you were not born mentally retarded? That you were born, say, into a middle-class family in a prosperous part of the world?

God—or “luck”—has been good to you if you can mouth such swaggering lines. You are not in command, and you are simply being ungrateful. You have no right to take the credit, any more than to look down on those less fortunate.

So you reckoned, my bright young mastodon,

That God was a crutch for the lame.

And you’d call the lame man a loser,

As if loss were a reason for shame.

Go, walk down the darkening morning

As one not accustomed to beg

And hold your head high as a street lamp

Till you feel a sharp pain in your leg.

And, hey, look over your shoulder;

An old man is dressing to grieve.

And he’s hiding an ace in his pocket watch

And he’s hiding a laugh up his sleeve.

 

-- Stephen Kent Roney