World War II — Muggeridge's Take

I've mentioned the book by Malcolm Muggeridge that I've been reading when eating alone in a restaurant: "a third testament" with chapters on various notable Christian thinkers. Last Friday I finished reading it and offered it to Seth the waiter, who graciously declined the offer.

The final chapter of the book is on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who was executed by the Nazis shortly before the end of WWII. At the conclusion of the chapter, Muggeridge writes:

Looking back now across the years, I ask myself where in that murky darkness any light shines. Not among the Nazis, certainly, nor among the liberators, who, as we now know, were to liberate no one and nothing. The rhetoric and the cant have mercifully been forgotten. What lives on is the memory of a man who dies, not on behalf of freedom or democracy or a steadily rising Gross National Product, nor for any of the twentieth century's counterfeit hopes and desires, but on behalf of a Cross on which another man died two thousand years before. As on that previous occasion on Golgotha, so amidst the rubble and desolation of "liberated" Europe, the only victor is the man who died, as the only hope for the future lies in his triumph over death. There can never be any other victory or any other hope.

The Warm Sacred Night, Part 2: "Seth" the Waiter

My first time in the Scollay Square my waiter introduced himself as "Seth," and he may have been the best waiter I ever had — certainly in the top level. On subsequent visits the waitresses were very good, but not quite up to "Seth's" level. Eventually I started asking if Seth had an open table.

On one of my early visits, Seth asked what I was reading, and I showed him: "Truth and Tolerance" by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. I told him a bit about the subject. After that our interactions took on a slightly friendly tone. There was a period of a couple of months when he was not there. When he showed up, I mentioned his long absence, and he explained that he had been in Israel. On another occasion, I learned that he is a college student majoring in Political Science. He is now a senior. I think he's Jewish, not only from the time in Israel (which was enough), but also because last night I noticed that he is wearing a "chai" — a Hebrew letter meaning "life" and also a version of the name of Abraham — just below his throat.

It was kind of heavy going, but eventually I finished the Ratzinger book last spring and I began "a third testament," by Malcolm Muggeridge, a revised version of the scripts from a 7-part TV series he had done, with segments on St. Augustine, Pascal, Blake, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Bonhoeffer. Yesterday I was reading the chapter on Kierkegaard.

Seth asked what I was reading and I handed him the book. He remarked that it looked interesting. I asked him if he knew who Muggeridge was. No. So I said an atheist (agnostic would have been more accurate) British journalist who eventually came to believe in God. Then I remembered and mentioned when Seth came back with the appetizer or something that it was Muggeridge who introduced Mother Teresa to the West with his book "Something Beautiful for God." Seth said he'd look for it.

Toward the end of the meal, I was at the end of the chapter, which Mugg closes with a quote from the last thing Kierkegaard wrote. I showed it to Seth and invited him — when he had a free minute — to read most of it, beginning after the reference to Christianity, which was hidden behind the card I use as a bookmark. He took the book immediately and read
"every man, every individual, is equally close to God...How close and equally close? Because Loved by Him. Consequently there is equality, the equality of infinity, between man and man. If there is any distinction, it is that one person bears in mind that he is loved, perhaps day after day, perhaps day after day for seventy years, perhaps with only one longing, a longing for eternity so that he can really grasp this thought and go through life with it, concerning himself with the blessed occupation of meditating on how he is loved — and not, alas, because of his virtue. Another person perhaps does not remember that he is loved, perhaps goes on year after year, day after day, and does not think of his being loved; or perhaps he is glad and grateful to be loved by his wife, by his children, by his friends, by his contemporaries, but he does not think of his being loved by God. Or perhaps he laments not being loved by anyone and does not think of being loved by God. Infinite, divine love: it makes no distinction! But what of human ingratitude? If there is an equality among us men in which we completely resemble each other, it is that not one of us truly thinks about being loved!"
He handed back the book, and I suggested that maybe one had to be my age to really appreciate that passage. He disagreed. I wonder what the other customers must have thought if they noticed this action.

I paid my tab with a credit card, tipping over 25% of the pre-tax amount. I figure that I should always tip on the heavy side when I'm alone at a table, preventing the waiter or waitress from being tipped on multiple meals. But this was even a couple of bucks more because of the personal interaction. And as I put on my coat and started to leave, he said "Good night, Mr. [Naturgesetz]." (At that point he would not have seen the tip I added.)