Monsters

What is the true definition of a monster?

MONSTERS

We just celebrated October 31st and tonight is All Hallows Eve. Trick or treaters will don their costumes, paint their faces or put on a mask, grab their buckets, pillowcases, or Walmart bags and hit the streets extorting goodies in exchange for not soaping windows, streaming toilet paper in trees, or even more serious mayhem. This year the Chinese flu will curtail many of these activities, in fact, I just realized this is the first year “Devils Night” has not been the top story of the day. Monsters such as Frankenstein and Dracula will link arms with werewolves, witches, and warlocks. Black cats, bats, and creatures of the night will slither and slink through the darkness waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting and naive.

The division, turmoil, and contention the country has been embroiled in since the beginning of the new millennium has caused me to contemplate a paragraph from John Steinbeck’s book East of Eden. It begins:

“I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents…and just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?”

How does one recognize a malformed soul? Can it be clothed in a disguise like Frankenstein or hidden behind Dracula’s cloak? Can it even be recognized by outward appearance? Can monsters sometimes come dressed in designer clothes, smelling of expensive perfumes, educated at the best universities, employed in prestigious jobs, bathed in wealth, with charismatic personalities, and beautiful features?

We live in a world where image matters more than substance, and truth is swallowed by mendacity in the highest circles. Emotions, rule decisions and principles are considered archaic and no longer relevant. It is the hour of political correctness, mediocrity, and conformity. Monsters are not the legends and fairy tales once told to children but have become very adept at drawing victims into their web with subtle enticements, superficial motivations, and flattering words. Before the fly realizes it, the spiders web has prepared it for the feast.

Is a mother who aborts her baby not a monster? Is a terrorist who straps a bomb on his body and enters a crowded area before pushing a detonator not a monster? Are mobs who hide behind mask and burn, destroy, threaten, hurt, and kill over perceived injustice monsters? What about the wife beater, child molester, rapist, murderer, are they not monsters? Then there is the corrupt politician, the fallen clergy, the talk show host spewing hate and lies, the fake news media, could they not be considered monstrous?

Last of all is the disciple of Christ, who cherry-picks his scriptures, emasculates his God, excuses sin, and embraces unrighteousness in the name of tolerance, love, understanding, and holiness, is he not the most monstrous of all.