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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Monday, May 20, 2019

Life Happens, Love Happens


“People don't always get what they deserve in this world.”
Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book
____________________________________________________

Perhaps it is not just a coincidence that tomorrow I begin leading a study
On the book of Job…

The day after a person who I believe was an authentic voice for God
Died
At age 37
Of complications stemming from a reaction to anti-biotics

Rest in Peace
Rachel Held Even
May your beloved husband be covered with love
And your children, ages 1 and 3, feel the love embrace them

Honestly
This angers me
I am not very happy with God right now

It is such an injustice,
That this loving, kind woman should die
When a narcissist who is slowly destroying not only our country
but the planet
for the sake of money
lives

Not only lives, flourishes
And is aided and abetted by people soaked in power and wealth
And adored by people who have chosen the way
Of hate and fear and domination
Over service and love

This angers me
Even though I know this is the way the world works
In Job it is very clear
The innocent suffer

And Jesus made it all too clear
The sun rises on the evil and on the good,
And the rain falls on the just and on the unjust.

It is just a fact
That there is no direct causality between a good life and prosperity
And an evil life and trial

Otherwise Rachel would be alive and with her children
And someone else would find their life in ruins

What kind of God is it, who watches such absurdity?
What kind of God allows such stuff to happen?

It raises the question, doesn’t it, about how God interacts with the world
Is God, as Jim Wallis suggests, “an active agent” in the world?
And if God is an active agent, why does such injustice exist?

I suspect it comes down to how God chooses to work
God always, it seems, in his actions in the world
Clothes himself/herself with humanity

God always works through people
God always resides in people
God always shows up in the flesh

Which is terribly “iffy” way to do things
And yet

It changes God from something up there out there
From something distant and immanent
To someone close and intimate

And there is a cost to that intimacy

Life happens
Greed happens
Hate happens
Compassion happens
Generosity happens

Evil people flourish
Good people die

But still God is present
I suspect that Rachel in her death
Moved from communion with God to union
And will be forever blessed

And I suspect that for some, living is ultimately more tragic
than is dying, as Rachael did,
surrounded by love, respected, and missed and mourned
and when arriving back from whence one came, the Sacred, being welcomed, and at home.

God was clothed in Rachel
And it showed

God is clothed in others
Who are not awake
And it does not show

But it does not change the reality of how God works
As Rachel told us….

“We could not become like God, so God became like us. God showed us how to heal instead of kill, how to mend instead of destroy, how to love instead of hate, how to live instead of longing for more. When we nailed God to a tree, God forgave. And when we buried God in the ground, God got up.”

As it was
So it is

Love wins

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