intolerable kindness

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

                                         C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology

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Robber barons

Or

Moral busybodies

What a choice

And what happens when the two engage in an unholy alliance?

We now know

For this is today’s America

We are a country run by the rich for the rich

And also a country where a powerful group of people seek to coerce the populace

Into their own version of morality

What could go wrong?

What could go wrong is that we end up with a dominating (dominionist) faith system that perverts the Sacred

Sometimes I understand

That I don’t know much about God

But at the same time I understand I have the gift of knowing God

There is a difference

A difference between words on a page

Whether that page being in the Bible

Or in some deep theological tome

and The Word

living inside me

There is a difference between a religious system

Made up of rules and rituals

And Love, woven into the fabric of my being

Sacred Presence, filling my soul

When faith is about merely about rules to be obeyed

And rituals to follow

Faith can become twisted

It can move from being something that brings life

To something that brings death

From something that gives us freedom

To something that imprisons

From something that makes us loving and kind

To being something that makes us judgmental and cruel

Instead of rescuing us from our love of money

which is the root of so much pain and misery

it aligns with wealth

make us people who

instead of being generous and grateful givers

become hoarders, who celebrate our wealth

even which we shame other people’s poverty

I struggle with those robber barons

With those who are insatiable and cannot, ever, get enough

It hurts my heart

To watch them kill the earth (think drill baby drill)

And put people at risk (think deregulation)

And force people into poverty (think minimum wage)

For the sake of profit

What really hurts is when those people

Do all of that

While claiming that they love Jesus

The same Jesus whose, when visiting this messed up planet said

“it is harder for the rich to find their way to heaven, than it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle”

The same Jesus who said “blessed are the poor”

Yes I struggle with the robber barons

But I struggle even more with those who

Believe so strong in their own rightness, their own righteousness

That they seek to impose their version of God and righteousness on other

Those who seek to legislate morality

Impose their brand of ethics

inflict their belief system

Jesus made it pretty clear

that true righteousness is never an outside job

but always an inside job

right living comes from the inside

it cannot be imposed or coerced

or artificially inseminated with legislation and retribution

we must not invoke tyranny in the name of Jesus

we must not shame

coerce

or control in the name of Jesus

we have one job

to Love

And in love welcome

In love accept

In love listen

In love give

In love forgive

for love will awake love

and the Spirit in us with dance with the Spirit in them

and God will do the rest