If Gargoyles Ruled The World

The purpose of gargoyles is to protect buildings and individuals from evil. Gargoyles are the sacred guardians who keep us from harm. This is a good thing because places and people protected by them have little to fear.  So if they bring about safety and peace of mind, why don’t we have more of them? And what would happen if they ruled the world?

Here’s What I Think Would Happen:

They would consume all the evil from everywhere it exists. They’d gobble it up and all the bad things would go away. The earth would become a kind of paradise where nothing goes wrong. There would be no more suffering. This new status of the world would take away all the pain of life, because there would be no source of pain. There would be no more crying, also. No more aging or death or being separated from loved ones. There would be nothing to fear because all the predators would become friends with their prey. Wars would be over. Love would flourish. Hostilities would end. The bad things in life would vanish.

And Than What?

If all the evil were gone, there would be no more need to reduce suffering because nothing would cause suffering. There would be no more need to alleviate pain because injury would be impossible. There would be no reason to stand up for the weak, because no one would be weak. Everyone would be healthy, so illness would vanish, and as a result there would be no more need for mercy or self sacrifice.

Without suffering there would also be no need of compassion. We would no longer need protection, so there would be no more need for heroes or gargoyles. We would see that when evil dies, so does mercy. Because things like mercy, love, kindness, compassion, heroes, and gargoyles are the things that save us and make us stronger, but without evil we have no need of them. And without need of them, these things might also vanish, leaving us without an opportunity to glimpse into the very best part of the human soul.

So perhaps the best of all possible worlds is one in which we all have free will and where bad things sometimes happen so that we can see the beauty of self sacrifice and understand the value of kindness. A world where we sometimes need protecting is a scary world, but it’s also a wonderful world because it opens our eyes to all the beauty of good and the potential for mercy within all of us.

Life is a continuous cycle of ups and downs with good and evil in constant battle. Sometimes we feel like we’re flying, and at others we feel like we’re falling. It’s a lot like a merry-go-round or a Ferris Wheel. No one gets on these carnival rides expecting to go anywhere. We get on them for the experience of the thrill.

The up is nothing without the down and the need for grace, mercy, and protection from harm are nothing without the potential for evil. So a world in which we need gargoyles to protect us really is the best of all possible worlds, and maybe gargoyles should never rule the world so that we always have need of them.