Pretty Evil

The painting is Salome Dancing before Herod by Gustave Moreau. It's beauty and bold statement took my breath the first time I saw it, when a portion of the Armand Hammer museum exhibit traveled to Memphis. I encourage you to look at it in closer detail than what this picture/post may allow.

Hang with me while I give you the backstory to my sharing this painting with you. I'll get back to it.

I just returned from a week-long continuing education event that was quite disappointing to say the least. There were wonderful moments sprinkled through the six days that felt like a hundred. One of those? Experiencing "The Dark Knight" on an IMAX screen with a group of friends and colleagues. (There's something fabulously weird about being face-to-face with a 5-story tall Batman jumping off buildings!) Our animated conversation at the close of the movie was about lines and moves and surprises and special effects. And, without fail, we all had a strong response to The Joker. Ledger did an amazing job of creating, presenting a character that was larger than the actor playing the part. And, as weird as it sounds, I rather liked The Joker. He had a strong grasp of the truth, lived from a place of understanding that was boldly discomforting but attractive to everyone - those characters in the movie with him and those of us watching from our seats. Our conversation included the question of what drives the darkness of The Joker - some pain from his past, perhaps, or pure evil?

Pan to the painting by Moreau. If you took a moment to look, the opulence of the scene is unmistakable and intoxicating. Did you connect with the story Moreau is translating for us: Salome dancing before her step-dad/uncle in honor of his birthday. He was so taken by the performance that he popped his mouth off before he thought and offered the girl a reward of up to half of all he had. Young and unprepared for the spot she was in (who would be?), she deferred to her mother's guidance. Since her mother hated John the Baptist for telling the bold, hard truth about the life she was living, she told the girl to ask for John's head ... and she did. (Matthew 14:1-11, the Sandra translation)

Did you notice the panther in the bottom right corner of the painting? Sleek and beautiful, powerful ... and waiting like a panther waits. What struck me when I saw Moreau's work for the first time is that evil is just like that. Beautiful, powerful, sleek (or, slick), and waiting for our moments of weakness, blindness, ignorance, misplaced good intentions, self-absorption, denial, fear, ... Sometimes, it seems, evil pounces on us with no provocation; sometimes we invite it in as if we didn't know what we were messing with. Maybe we don't.

If evil always looked like The Joker, we'd know right away to steer clear because of it's ugliness. But what it evil acts like the Joker - wise or funny or promising or weirdly attractive? All the more reason for us to not get so caught up in the dance, performing it or watching it, that we're not aware of the panther in the room and its true nature. No need to stop dancing or finding joy in the beauty of it all, no need to be afraid ... just don't pet the panther, if you get my drift.