Loving Charles Wallace

 "But she could love Charles Wallace."

Last week, I finished A Wrinkle in Time with my 8th graders and fought back tears as I read this final scene aloud in class. The protagonist Meg finally understands that the only weapon she has against IT, the evil power controlling her beloved little brother, is . . . love. Love is the one thing she has that IT doesn't have.

Meg first wonders if she is expected to love IT; she is sure that IT could not withstand love, that it would "shrivel up and die" if she loved it. But she realizes that she is incapable of love that great. I don't think any of us are. We hate evil, understandably.

Nevertheless, we can and should love those who are caught up in and therefore victims of evil. Like Meg's brother, who was a good kid, but prideful and unwise, who believed he was strong enough and smart enough to withstand IT's power, but was very wrong. 

"She could stand there and she could love Charles Wallace."

You have understand that this was just after she had acknowledged the "hatred, sheer and unadulterated" that she was feeling at that moment in the presence of this wicked and horrific force. And shouldn't we hate evil? Even God hates evil. But, "as she became lost in hatred she also began to be lost in IT."

Oh, brothers and sisters . . . I pray that this is not where we are.

I know Jesus got angry, and I know so many of us use that fact to justify our own anger, especially anger at the all the wrong we see in the world. But we are not Jesus. And I'm starting to wonder if we aren't playing with fire to believe we can be angry or feel hatred without getting "lost in IT."

Witness the state of our country at the moment. Witness our apparent national inability to separate the people around us from the evil that influences them. 

No, God doesn't want you to love racism. But God does want you to love the woman who was raised to believe blacks are something "less than" and hasn't yet had enough experience with black people to learn otherwise. 

No, God doesn't want you to love fascism. But God does want you to love your neighbor with the yard sign supporting the political candidate you fear may be fascist.

You don't have to love IT. But oh . . . please love Charles Wallace! Dear Charles Wallace, beloved of God, who maybe should have known better but still got lost, as we all do at times. (Remember: we are all there in some aspect of our thinking, deceived in our ignorance and arrogant in our pride.)

Stand there and love Charles Wallace, friends. Love is the only thing you can give him that IT can't.