I am awake today

I am awake today

to the enormity of hate

to the massive power of self-interest

 

to how destructive it is when we human creatures

choose to focus on themselves

as individuals

and ignore others

 

how deadly it can be when we choose

to act out of “selfish ambition”

when we create our own path

our own rules

our own wisdom

 

rather than choose unity with God

unity with others

 

this is perhaps the basic human error

 

we forget we are part of the One

we forget we are light

 

and we try to appropriate for ourselves alone

what was meant for all

 

like rebellious teenagers, we break away from the path of love

we test the boundaries, we wreak havoc

we create not just chaos

but destruction and death

 

we deny the Sacred in creation

and abuse it

we deny the Sacred in ourselves

and try vainly to re-create ourselves

we deny the Sacred in others

 

and all hell breaks loose

 

in our question for “freedom” and power

we lie

we grasp

exploit

we commit acts of violence

 

forgetting that we are one

that each human creature is in the image of God

carries God

 

so when we lie we lie to God

when we take, we take from God

when we exploit we exploit (or try) God

when we commit acts of violence we violate God

 

I am awake today to sin

And I am awake to a profound sense of helplessness.

 

Who can rescue us!

The One to whom we must return

Not if fear, but in hope

 

Because this One is love

Even in the garden, after Adam and Eve had chosen to go their own way

The One moved toward them

 

In Jesus, the One moved toward us!

 

We are not abandoned

God is with us

We can return home

 

Jesus gave us the secret of return

He told us to go into our inner world

our “secret world” (Brian McLaren)

and re-oriented ourselves to the One

 

and in secret pray, and fast, and give

in secret

over and over and over again

 

until prayer and fasting and giving

become a habit

become the way we live

until what we do in secret shows up in our outer lives

 

as forgiveness, and generosity,

and kindness

 

until we rediscover the reality

that our true freedom comes not

from individualism, but from unity

not from independence, but from connectedness

 

not from the assertion of power

but from a ceding of power

that paradoxically returns to us

the power

of

love

 

I am awake today

to joy

and hope

and peace

 

and yes,

love