Some years ago, Adam’s boyish tomfoolery got away from him and caused a lot of damage — far beyond what he ever contemplated. Adam (not his real name) might have suffered serious legal consequences. Fortunately, a wise judge gave the boy a second chance. Adam used his dispensation of mercy well. Having seen the legal system from within and wanting to help other “knuckle-headed” kids, Adam went to law school and graduated with honors. Adam’s first job is working as a law clerk for that very judge who saved him from his folly. The cosmic law of justice and delicious irony brought judge and juvenile together again to vindicate that good jurist.
The cosmic law of justice and irony ensures that the opposite is also true. In George Eliot’s novella, "Brother Jacob," David is a selfish and opportunistic young man. To finance running away from his stifling, boring life in agrarian England, David purloins his mother’s few gold sovereigns painfully accumulated over years of thrift. Dashing through the woods, he stumbles into his giant mentally impaired brother Jacob. Jacob had often played with the dazzling gold and fastens on the coins, almost aborting David’s flight. Years later, David has returned from the Indies and set up a prosperous sweets shop in a town many miles from his boyhood home. David is on the cusp of marrying a beautiful girl from a prestigious family. Just as he was finalizing his betrothal by entertaining her still dubious family in the back of his shop, a great racket breaks out in the shop. Visitors and villagers quickly descend on the beautiful little shop to see a gleeful giant rumble through it, stuffing himself with candy and cakes. When he beholds his long lost brother, Jacob yells in delight at “Davey’s” return and tearfully embraces him. David temporizes, but the truth will out, and David is exposed as a thief and pretender. He is openly shamed, rejected by his new friends, and disappears a broke and broken man.
The phenomenon by which the good and evil we do return to us has been variously described. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). Buddhism’s karma says the very nature of life is that we will receive according to our true intent, whether good or bad. Solomon counseled us: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days” (Ecc. 11:1). And Jesus taught us, “For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38). This all sounds like Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This wisdom is stuffed into a common axiom, “What goes around comes around.”
There is still more to this great law of consequences, because it’s not just that we will suffer or enjoy the fruits of what we dish out. We will actually “become” what we think, say and do. At first, our soul is merely affected or colored by our thoughts and deeds. However, as we persevere in virtue and vice, they imprint themselves indelibly on our souls. Ultimately, by a lifetime of choices we become to the fiber of our beings an honest person, a sour person, an unselfish person or a lecherous person. We become the sum of our choices.
I interrupt this essay for an important announcement: Notwithstanding our past choices, everyone can change through repentance, enabled by the grace of God and the kindness of loving human helpers. Redemption is certainly possible.
Androcles should be our guide. Androcles nursed to health a mighty lion lamed by a huge thorn in his paw. He later stood in the Roman Circus condemned to be attacked and consumed by a ravenous beast. Happily, that beast was the lion to whom Androcles had ministered kind relief years before. Recognizing Androcles as his benefactor, the lion merely lapped and licked his great friend. They were both set free.
For what goes around comes around.
Greg Bell is the former lieutenant governor of Utah and the current president and CEO of the Utah Hospital Association.