Have
you ever watched Red Dragon (2002) and sat back thinking, wow, the killer isn’t
that bad of a guy. I mean, yes, he’s killing entire families and he’s plotting
an atrocious murder while on a date with a blind woman. But there’s a scene
where he takes a blind woman to see a tiger who is sedated. She comments early
in the film that she remembers seeing a tiger when she was little. He brings
her into the zoo where a tiger is laying on a table. She ruffles the tiger’s
fur. And there’s a moment, a pause where you think “Wow, that’s sweet.”
This
is one of the best parts of the movie. This is a part where you know that you’re
in too deep. You have empathized with a serial killer, a brutal serial killer. Someone
who you can’t justify his actions like you can with Dexter Morgan, but someone
who is deeply troubled but has just done something so sweet that it’s moving.
Proverbs
12:10 says: “The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest
acts of the wicked are cruel.”
My
first thought, something I’ve thought for a long time is – does that mean that
everyone who is “not righteous” committing only evil and incapable of good?
Well, maybe. I’m mean, I’m not here to lay down this theology and I’m
uncomfortable making declarations of faith based on one verse alone, but maybe….
But
as I watch the woman ruffle the tiger’s fur, I consider, what if the woman’s
pain when Edward Norton brings the serial killer to justice, is too much to
bear? Making the serial killer’s kindness a curse to her.
Another
thought is- The Bible says in other places “there is no one righteous” (Romans
3 – better to just read entire chapter). “No one is righteous”. Have you ever thought of that? Have you
ever thought that my kindness might just be undermined by my evil? Have you
ever considered that we are all evil?
I
know this isn’t a popular thought. We’re all basically good people just
sometimes we’re capable of genocide, murder, rape, theft, and a laundry list of
evil deeds. Or it’s not us; it’s other people who are capable. So today, ask
yourself, is my evil causing my kindness to be cruel? Maybe when they say kill
them with kindness, what you’re really doing is hurting them because sometimes
you’re kind and sometimes you’re cruel.
