“Dear God, you say all acts of beatify are yours,
Surely we can believe that. But what of all
actions
we see in this world,
for is there any force in existence greater than
the power
of your omnipresent hand?”
And God might have responded, “I like that
question.”
adding, “May I ask you one as well?”
And then God would say
“Have you ever been in a conversation when
children entered
the room, and you then ceased speaking because
your
wisdom knew they were not old enough
to benefit – to understand?
As exquisite is your world, most everyone in it
is spiritually young
Spirituality is love, and love never wars with the
minute, the day
One’s self and others. Love would rather die
Than maim a limb
A wing
Dear anything that divides man from man
Earth from sky, light and dark, one religion from
another….
O, I best keep silent, I see a child
Just entered the room
St
Thomas Aquinas
____________________________________________________
Love would rather die
Than maim a limb
A wing
Love would rather die
than be a part of anything that divides one from
another
love did die
a harsh death
silent
looking down with eyes of love
on the foolish children
who killed him
if that is how God is
and that is
how
God
Is
they why do so many people
see God
present God
as one
whom if He or She were a parent
would be reported to Child Protective Services
as one who is arbitrary
angry
demanding, judgmental
more than ready to save a few
and send the rest
not just away
but away to torment and pain?
why do we make faith about exclusion
and guilt
where even love is the product of fear
God
love would rather die
than have us see God and faith
that way
Ah wait
Love did
Die
______________________________
A long post note
I would suggest that much of what we struggle with
Comes because of the way we treat the Bible
People make it a new idol
In trying to endow it with respect
In trying to respect its power
The make it a book which must, in all its parts
Be “true” in the most rigid sense of the world
The Bible is true
It is a true record of our attempts to
understanding
This something greater, something bigger than
ourselves
It is the record of humanities progressive journey
To “find love”
To “find God”
A search many of us believe reach a unique place
When Jesus arrived
And love lived
And died
and lived again
and lived again
But the Bible is not just a sacred book
It is also human book
full of the writings of the spiritually young
who only partly understood
I mean look at them
David, who had man killed in order to take the man’s
wife
Solomon and his love of money and things
The psalmists, who wished destruction on their
enemies
Paul who was nothing if not a hater
Peter was just such and idiot at times
all struggling with life
and struggling to understand God
and sometimes, really getting it
and sometimes?
Yes,
Yes
somehow there is truth here
I believe that
But what this book shares is the story
our
story
with all the confusion
and
at times immaturity
that comes with being human
the book shares the story
of a search for this something
someone
we call God
it wanders and meanders
sometimes it pulls us into the muck
sometimes it carries us to the heights
the book is
us standing naked before God
seeking to find
"the way"
there as much to be learned from the stories of those who
got it wrong
as from the stories of those
who got it
just
right
always
as we read it
in our most mature moments
when we have out big boy (and girl) pants on
we must remember
we must remember
God is love
and love would rather die
than go down the path of hate
and judgment
and exclusion
we so often take
in
love’s name
love would rather die
so says
this book
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