No Country For This Old Man.

Facebook reminded me of this post from the election 4 years ago. This scene at the end of the movie/novel NCFOM provoked me and many to question again human freedom/agency and where god can be found in this broken death-dealing world.  Earlier in the novel McCarthy writes: “…Anything can be an instrument, small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting.  An after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. Its just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, its just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it?” (No Country p. 57).

But even though our coins have two sides and we label those sides various things like kick-off and receive, good and evil, life and death, it so often feels like I'm still just choosing between 2 different appearances of evil? When Jesus asked Jewish collaborators with the Roman empire to show him their coins, Caesar’s likeness may have only been on one side, but perhaps one of Jesus’ message was that the empire/death owned the whole coin no matter which side of it I choose? Bless you Carla Jean for your courage and wisdom.

(p.s. Death and coins ‘get here’ the same way as Caesar but there are other forms of Trinitarian life one may seek. Blessings.