Innocence As A Place To Hide

Mona said we are both too innocent and maybe it is true, though her innocence is not so much that of the believer as it is of defeat.  It is that way as long as it limits her inclination to change.  It is not a protective state but a place to hide.

When Change Happens

There has been change only when something happens, not if it is hoped about or only planned.  Thinking, hoping and even planning, while real, are not last steps.  Actions make them real, and to not go that extra step is to defeat the hope from which they sprang.

Running From Reflection

We run from reflection, so afraid are we of growth, of change.

Stay With Me

When in the garden Jesus says "Stay with me, be united with me," it is not just an expression of how we will be saved.  It is also a plea, an asking to be trusted and to be helped.  Maybe because he couldn't do it by himself, or maybe because he was afraid to be alone.

Real Prophets

Some prophets talk.  Real ones also listen.

Learning With Cancer

We would go through stages with the cancer, stages of shock and readjustment.  Periods of learning the new worst and then going back to life, incorporating the information and the hurt, recognizing our power and limitations, altering life to fit it all.

Being Worthy

What difference does it make whether we are worthy or not?  God said he loves and wants us.  That ought to be enough.  We are made worthy not because of what we are but because of who he is.  Talk of lowliness or unworthiness may be indication we don't yet believe him.  More probably, it means we don't yet believe in us and in what God told us to become.  Why not?

What The Spirit Is

Who or what is the reality we call the Spirit?  It is the abiding presence of Jesus, the manifestation of God among us.  It is what guides the Church, and it is love between Father and Son.  But what else?  Is there more to say?

Maybe it is the personal and collective awareness that leads the individuals to a fullness that enables them to complete the body of the Church.  Its manner of introducing itself may be diverse and confusing, and because of its nature as spirit its presence in a given situation or at any one time is uncertain.  Maybe it is also the influence on the present of what occurred in the past in light of current needs and the hoped for, though not yet realized, "what is yet to come."  The Spirit is a person in that it has and shares life, or is life to both Church and believer, neither of whom would be fulfilled without its fullness.  It enables us to hope too by assuring its presence in whatever will be.

The Spirit is more than inspiration, an inclination or guide vaguely pointing out an unerring path, a path wending a weary way to wisdom, lacking in insight.  Instead, it may drive us toward a number of paths twisting, turning, and doubling back upon itself.  Paths that meander sometimes and sometimes seem so frightfully direct.  They sometimes converge, cross, or run counter to other paths no less true.

That the Spirit lives and gives life we know by faith.  That it sustains and enlivens us we know from experience.  He is love and power, but also doubt and uncertainty - a part of (or maybe all of) the groping and wonder leading to truth and to God.

Will it suffice to say it is by the Spirit that we know and believe that in time and in God we will arrive where we began, having made progress along the way?  Is it enough that it is he who assures that in time it will all be alright, although not necessarily right now?

Origin Story

Did I make up God, or did he make me up?  It makes no difference since we are at this point committed to each other.

Being Named

He asked who he was, who they thought he was.  To have a meaning, a value or even a name, it had to be given by someone else.  What he might say about himself was at this stage less important.

They told him what the people said.  That he was being called a prophet or the incarnation of someone else's spirit.  It was not what he needed to hear.  So many titles and names.  What he meant to them was more important, so he asked again.  They said he was God's annointed.  They called him their Messiah, and so he was.  In that moment of recognition, it is who he became.  He could not be Messiah for himself; it needed them before it could be.

The Thief

The thief never had to say how evil he had been, but rather how good Jesus was.  It was enough.

Beyond Practicality

Practicality, while not unnecessary, can be destructive.  It is mostly expedient, focused on more movement than growth.  It is unaware of a spirit, but it is in spirit that people have their being.

What Money Cannot Buy

The pharisees pouring their money into the coffers thought they were buying salvation.  The widow was saying something else.  For them to do as they did, they must have heard it was for sale.  She had heard a different message.  Money, and even deeds, will not pay for what God gives freely.

Live With Life

He finally gave up waiting for the great revelation, that sudden awakening and unraveling, and began to live with life.

Ought vs. Is

The "ought" confronts the "is," challenging it to bring about what should be.  It may be a futile gesture, but a necessary one.

Music's Force

Here you are, an artist playing for people who listen sometimes, but sometimes not, and even then may not know what they are hearing.  You may imagine this is Carnegie Hall, a place you've wanted to be or perhaps have been, where you may think you should be now.  But it is a place more famous for its steaks than its music.

Had you known it would be like this, would you have been other than a musician?  If you could have seen it coming, would you have turned aside?  I may be wrong, but I doubt you would.  I don't believe you could have.  Music, like other things of value, is not directed.  Instead it leads, or drives.  It has a force, a life of its own, and you are part of it, creating it as it creates you.  Even though it may have to wear bell-bottomed pants and a vest, rather than the white tie and tails it may deserve, it is what you are.  It is you even though it must be an act rather than a performance.  Without it there would be what?

How Prayers Change

I used to pray, "God, give us ten more years," but now I say, "You'll be alive tomorrow, so I guess we're still ahead."

A Life Without Pain

He carried the signs and looked sad in the name of peace.  He was beaten on behalf of brotherhood and cried over the world's suffering.  What he did were good things, but I wonder would he be able to handle a life without pain, could he recognize and live with laughter and a love that asked more than dying.

He said we wouldn't die forever, but for a time we would

God's Responsibility for Good and Evil

There is need to look at things that make sense and wonder if they really do, to call out thoughts that are so reasonable, and ask are they not very finite answers to eternal questions.  It is an uncomfortable but necessary process, and I am forced to ask if what I want as a new part of belief will fit in a framework that was comfortable.  The framework, or the question it supported, is that old enigma:  why does evil occur when God is so good?

I had reached an acceptable answer.  I was content thinking God neither wished evil, nor could he alter its presence.  Having created the world and human condition, he encouraged its being itself in a fullness that includes both evil and good.  He is author and sustainer, but that was by and large the limit.  Evil, like good, occurs for no particular reason, and even less so for a personal one.  What is, is, since nature is capricious.  Its laws are less than absolute, allowing no shortage of exceptions.  There is no meriting, penalizing, or castigation.  We act in ways that are fulfilling of our nature, and God is free to love us and to lament with us when evil occurs.  He shares as a parent our losses and grief, not needing to tell us it had to be.  Illness or catastrophe simply is.  We may wish they would not be and can turn to science in an effort to make them stop, and so perfect another aspect of creation, seeking God's guidance in the process.

The advantage in such a view is there is no blaming of God, no saying his world or his design are in error.    It is as it is, as it has to be:  a universal plan, an element of which is the notion that humanity, or earthfulness (if such be the term applicable to all that is), is subject to tragedy, which may occur in nature, in people, or in events.  This had been a satisfactory scheme, even with a hole in it or two.

It freed God from responsibility for what ought not be, but took from him power to alter evil or bring on good; and it is this that I would now like to include.  I want him to have a capacity to intervene, to break in on what ordinarily is.  It is asking:  can God heal, can he respond to prayer, can he stop evil and in its place effect good?  I would like to say he can and that he does, though in the saying there returns the question put to rest by the old formula:  why does he do it only sometimes, or only in answer to some prayers?  While that old response had flaws, it freed God from what seemed a fickleness.  The randomness we assigned to nature now is a personal responsibility, and I felt better when it had not been so.  I don't want a selective God, even if his selection is intervening to effect good.  It opens too many options, too many questions, but if it is in fact so, what is to be done but accept it?

If good and evil exist, a contradiction not at variance with nature, there should be no contradiction in a rule saying that God can suspend the rule.  He can break into our world, turning evil to good, though when and why are beyond understanding.  It might be seen as his returning order to the world, the setting of it, even if only for a time, on a course where evil need not win and where the goodness that ought to be actually is.  It is, I suppose, a move backward in our wanting to think we can really understand God's ways.  I had, in the earlier answer, an advance toward equality, not so much in terms of personality as in our capacity to communicate in a respectful way.  We and God were, it seemed, bound by the same rules and might share the same delights and tears, but maybe that is not so.  At least not on this issue.

The next part of the question, or maybe the question behind the question, is:  if God can end evil, is he responsible for it?  Is he, rather than the earthfulness of earth, the reason evil is?  By not saying "stop," is he saying the tragedy should be and be compounded?

Perhaps it is not our responsibility to protect his integrity, but it seems that it is at stake.  It is the definition of God we wish to complete that is lessened by inclusion of this power.  God may be made less loving by becoming more able.  Could I say he loved me less if he could have ended my pain but didn't?  Would it be less accurate than saying he loved me but let me hurt without reason?  We are back to the mystery of the Cross, the enigma of his tolerating suffering that need not have been, but more so.  It is not the same as the Cross, not really.

With the Cross, pain and dying were the consequence and expression of belief.  They were the price paid in the face of unbelief, and embody a faith ratified in resurrection.  Where is ratification of pain not caused by belief, pain not a choice made in the name of what one cannot but believe?  Where in the flood or earthquake, in the cancer or deformity of mind or body, is the belief?  And where is the resurrection to give it value?  Maybe it is nowhere unless we add it to our own.  Maybe the task is to believe we suffer not because of belief, but in spite of it; that we are saved or raised not as ratification of faith, but in spite of unbelief.  Belief is then not the cause of pain, but what sustains us in it.  Like so much, this may fit a world where faith makes sense because reason cannot.

But it falters as we move from generality and look into the face of very specific pain.  Why, God, is this main hurting and why is that child to do; why was that village lost and how come bombs fell on this part of town?  Salvation is hard enough to find in the presence of goodness and maybe only faith can place it inside what is evil.  Maybe there is not equality in this equation - no "if this, then that."  No saying if Noah is saved, it is because there was a flood; no questioning the willingness to kill, so long as Isaac is saved.  Maybe instead the message is simply salvation.  The exception is the rule.  God cares, loves, and saves.  This is his will and when he acts, when he breaks in, it is for that reason.  To save, raise up, and make new.  Where then do we put the Cross?  Where in a world of resurrection do we put the pain that went before?  More important is the question of where to put the suffering intruding into my life.  What do I answer myself when I ask about pain and the terrible sadness standing at the edge of so much?  It is there and at times more alive than thoughts of God's love, more tangible too than prayer for healing or the faith that causes prayer to be.

Were I to believe more, would the evil go away?  And had I believed more in anticipation of this day, would it ever have come?  If the lack is in my faith, where then is the lack in Jesus' faith or in the faith of so many whose prayer joins with mine?  It is impossible to think we are the cause of our suffering, nor am I anxious to see in the suffering of those about me a payment for what others may have done, but in the end there are more questions than answers.  The facts, if facts they are, are those with which we began:  God is good and loves us; he grieves in our grief and wishes no evil.  Evil does happen and is frightfully real, but it is perhaps salvific in a manner beyond our understanding.  God can and does enter in a salvific way and may do so in ways that may save us from pain and sickness, and so he affirms the evil of evil.  It is never beyond his will to free us from it.

Can we go beyond where we began, adding reason to faith?  Perhaps not, but it is important to try, and sometimes - like now - what I put back together is more askew than the framework with which I began.  Not everything fits.  Not everything can, despite our wishes or need to know as much as we believe.

Beyond One Dimension

Nothing is everything.  Focus on, or even treatment of, one aspect or trait is a distortion.  The individual does not really improve until we realize, treat, care for and grow in appreciation of all of everything.  We are otherwise making a one term definition of a one dimensional person.  Such people do not exist.

Misdiagnosing Dialogue

Dialogue is what they called it.  They were, they said, exchanging points of view.  It was nothing of the sort.  It was the shutting off or out of what each other might say.  No sooner were words spoken than they were countered, rejected, contradicted, condemned, denied, or made to mean something else.  One side could not listen.  The other would not see.  The gap widened.  Alienation was born, and flourished.  They had begun with nothing in common, and went on to prove they never could.  It was combat rather than sharing, and so while each felt he had won, neither felt he had gained.  Surely, they'd given it the wrong name.  Dialogue must mean something else.

Supplication

They were hurt enough to beg, but strong enough to disown it.  The supplication was in response to the pain, rather than to the question occasioning it.

Valuing Faith

Unless non-belief is a real possibility, has faith a value?

Competing Demands

There are a number of kids fouled up by parents who couldn't accept and understand, who didn't or wouldn't or never knew how to give what their children should have been able to expect.  They are people wanting to love and be loved, but it is hard and they give up, settling for something less, settling for respect or control, a presence in role but not in person.  They focus on their rights, but permit their children none.  They can give things, but not themselves, and it is not enough.  They ache from awareness of their emptiness.  They are frustrated and hurt by the anger they receive.  What might have been love is only sadness, and I wonder what comes to mind for both parent and child when they hear that God is Father.

Dynamism Required for Eternal Truth

They called it an eternal truth.  Perhaps they called it that because it dragged on and on.  But somehow it had lost its dynamism, and with it had gone any true claim on eternity.

At One With Godness

We know God is divine, whatever that may mean.  At Christmas, we celebrate his being human, the entering in of humanity and its becoming one with Godness.  He shared our life and being so that in the sharing we might both become more.  Because he was, and is, one of us, what we are has become holy, good and sacred.  Because of Jesus, humanity is filled with what God is.  What will yet be will happen because God allowed himself to be filled with the wonder of being a man.

Trade-Off

I guess we give so we don't have to take.

Loving In Spite of Giving

Is it enough to love God in response to what he gives when we would doubt such a motive in love for anyone else?  Maybe it should be in spite of or aside from his gifts that we love him.