Love Your Enemies

I love this command, and it's certainly something I try to live up to - though in all honesty, I'm pretty lucky and haven't really had to deal with people antagonizing me in quite a long time. The scene in which Meg saves Charles Wallace with her love is very powerful; her Naming Mr. Jenkins is just as moving. Meg is such a spirited, opinionated girl, and the bland, authoritarian Mr. Jenkins has been a source of great distress and disappointment to her, not least because he could be a strong advocate if he had the inclination. In her everyday life, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to call him her greatest nemesis, and it's not wonder she struggles with her assignment to Name him. But love triumphs over hatred, and he turns out to be incredibly important in the quest to cure Charles Wallace and demonstrates that underneath all that bureaucracy, he really does care about his students.

He reminds me a lot of Katherine Brooke, the stodgy administrator Anne Shirley wins over in Anne of Windy Poplars, showing her how to really live again. I don't suppose Meg expected too much of Mr. Jenkins when she Named him at the school, but because she opened herself to the seed of goodness within this incredibly frustrating character, she was able to watch him blossom into a truly beautiful person. What a wonderful illustration of the healing power of compassion...