Samson And Delilah As Seen in Cartoon – Or a Parable on the Wages of Lust and Power

Samson and Delilah – Pompeo Batoni (1766)

The video below is a dramatization (sort of) of the story of Samson and Delilah as well as a commentary on lust and power. In case you would like to review the story of Samson and Delilah, CLICK HERE.

As the video opens, two superheroes are summoned to an emergency. They rush to the scene, but in a reckless fashion, and a great crash occurs. And here is a symbol for pride, for too often we rush headlong into solving problems, but often with little concern for other problems we may create in the process. For example, our quest to “end poverty in our time” has resulted more in the demise of the family; our quest to liberate the world from tyranny (through violence, drone strikes, and war) has led more often to inciting even more violence, and to the rise of new villainies.

After the crash, the superheroes seek to blame each other for the accident. And here is an image for our tendency to shift blame and avoid personal responsibility. We speak endlessly of our rights and the freedom to do as we please, but we want none of the responsibility. And of course any consequences are someone else’s fault.

There then ensues a great conflict between them to wrest control of the situation. And here is an image for power and the desire to overpower others. It merely serves to usher in a brutal and deadly struggle—one in which ultimately no one can win. Rather, all suffer devastating loss. Even victory is brief before the cycle of violence repeats.

Our male superhero, let’s call him Samson, seems to have the upper hand in the conflict. But the female superhero, let’s call her Delilah, is not to be undone and seeks to overcome Samson through her charms. And here is lust. For Samson, whatever his strengths, has a fatal flaw that destroys many men—lust. And as a result of it, many men (and women) and have ruined their lives. They’ve brought on poverty, STDs, abortion, teenage pregnancy, shattered dreams, broken families, and broken hearts.

The end of both of these superheroes is death and destruction. For pride, irresponsibility, unrestrained power, and lust unleash only devastation, destruction, and death—both individually and collectively.

In the biblical story, though Delilah “won,” it was only for a moment. And so it is with every worldly victory; it is temporary at best. Only heavenly victory and treasure stored up there will prevail. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23).

Cross-posted at the Catholic Standard: Samson And Delilah As Seen in Cartoon – Or a Parable on the Wages of Lust and Power

One Reply to “Samson And Delilah As Seen in Cartoon – Or a Parable on the Wages of Lust and Power”

  1. With wide spread materialism, the socalled entertainment and party culture puts great stress on the youth who tries, of course, to become perfect in the eyes of one another and of the grown ups. Hence, instead of a culture of human dignity, material poverty, chastity in love, or liberty in self resteaint, even young catholics are tempted to false self realization of that greed and lust that only begets enormous loneliness instead of true happiness. But it is not the material world nor even human nature that is to blame, for those were created by God so that everybody must long for him, but the blame is on human persons for being morally passive to one another’s problems. Even money and sex was created for something good, respectively, the distribution of wealth in complicated societies and holy marriage. But greed and lust emphasize only the materiality of money and sex, not their greater purpose in the human family, as was said, social justice and parental love. Christendom has so much to offer everybody in our century, instead of despair, and we must never fall into the temptation to blame the Creator. The human person enjoys immaterial graces that cannot be sold and bought on the free market, human dignity with free will relative to the other. As regards the entertainment and party culture, this is capable of transformation into Christian worship, or at least religious worship, which depraves the Devil of his theft from young people of their liberty, on the contrary, in religious worship, liberty instead of despair can set hope free. It still remains for the young people to save the climate and all that, which can also be done, with the help of science, morality, and forgiveness instead of wars. Hence religious worship is at the very heart of saving the good Earth.

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