the pencil reads

Wodehouse's Psmith is an extremely quirky and endearing person. He is verbose, insists on the "P" in front of his name, enjoys the artistocratic type of high life, talks and flatters and talks some more, calls everyone `Comrade', and yet has a heart of gold.

He is so kind. The incident with Master Maloney, a little kid who is the office boy of the paper Cosy Moments, made me fall head over heels for Psmith. Psmith, anticipating the arrival of thugs who would hit Maloney over the head, sends him off to the zoo on official leave on the premise that Maloney is too "important to the office" to have his head hit. Psmith does this with such charm and subtlety that it is impossible not to be in awe.

Going a little heavy-handed on Wodehouse here, Psmith reminds me that it is possible for different personalities to be Christ-like. Psmith is the very opposite of a monk -- his ambition, verbosity, upper-crustness, etc. -- yet, he is Christ-like too. It is very important to know this, I think. Sometimes we get daunted in this quest for godliness because we have in our minds a picture of what we should be if we were Christ-like. For example, there is the image of the soft-spoken, gentle, paitent, enduring, submissive, quiet woman of God that we sometimes have. For some of us, that image so jars with our personalities that we give up before we even start.

I beg to differ. I think a strong, assertive, talkative, "gi la" (hyper) woman can be Christ-like in her own way too. I don't mean that God does not want radical change from us -- just that sometimes we look only at the outward behaviour, when God wants to change the heart. There isn't a "personality type" that is more blessed, if you get my drift of meaning.

Anyway, I'll stop talking now. Too much coffee this morning is making me talk too much.

Posted on Friday, October 21, 2005 at 9:26 AM. :)