Enjoying God

"Your image of God creates you. You become the God you worship. If your God is an eternal torturer, then torture is validated. If God is presented in the image of a king, then we’ll all want to be kings. If God is Trinity—love and relationality—that creates a very different kind of humanity. It leads us to a different worldview, sociology, politics, and sense of belonging and purpose."

                                                              -- Richard Rohr

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When I was a child

I learned the catechism

I was always struck by the first question

“What is the chief end of man (and woman)

The answer was also profound.

To Glorify God and Enjoy God forever

I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out what that means

And honestly, I can only come up with one answer to works

If I want to glorify God,

And if I want to “enjoy” God

If I want to ‘enjoy’ God I have to connect with God

I have to become as “united” with God

As I possibly can

(not an easy task for someone steeped in the culture of individualism, and merit)

And if I want to glorify God

I have to let my love relationship with God

My experience of God

Transform me

The way love always transforms us

And thus transform the way I am

And how I live

And how I treat the earth

And every creature who dwells upon this earth

What this means

Is that God is about “we” (all)

And not about “me”

I all comes down that what God is like,

This one whom I am called to love.

This one I must welcome, and allow to love me.

There are many images for God

Many of those images

Because God is by definition “big” and transcendent

Are images of power

God as King

God as Father (in a patriarchal society)

God as Judge

And it does not take much to move us from power

To fear

For we know what we do with power

We use it

And all too often we use it in way

That are self-focused

And protective

And controlling

And retributive

And so it is easy to see God

That way

But God gets us!

God understands how we work

And thus

Jesus

Who came to reveal what God is really like

So much for our controlling, protective, power wielding retributive God

Instead we have one who emptied himself

Who loved

Who healed

Who taught compassion and generosity

Who warned against the love of power and greed

And we have one who rather

That use his power in a vengeful, retributive way

Went to the cross

And while mocked by his murders

Said “Father forgive them”

God is love

God is a lover

God is, Creator, Savior, Empowerer

A dynamic love relationship with whom I am called to have

A relationship

A dynamic love relationship

I must experience

Not as something up there out there

But as something inside me

As close as my breath

And that God of love must shape me

Instead of me, falsely, shaping God

It when I am shaped by God

That I become new

It when I am shaped by God

That I gain the capacity to do life differently

To live a life of welcome, compassion, generosity and kindess

It is when I am shaped by God

That I “enjoy God and glorify God

Forever”