The God I believe in shapes me

Until I discover the God in which I believe, I will never understand another thing about my own life. If my God is harsh judge, I will live in unquenchable guilt. If my God is Holy Nothingness, I will live a life of cosmic loneliness. If my God is taunt and bully, I will live my life impaled on the pin of a grinning giant. If my God is life and hope, I will live my life in fullness overflowing forever.

Joan Chittister, In Search of Belief (Liguori Publications: 1999), 20–21, 22.

(via Rohr, Daily Meditations, 11/30/21)

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If God

If God is my life

If God is my life and hope

 

Ah!

 

If only

we could let God be God

not just in the sense that we let God rule

meaning not that we let God bully and coerce

but that we let God be THE influencer in our lives

 

the one in whom we live and breathe

and have our being

 

the one who shapes us

 

Ah

 

If only

 

This morning as I await the sun

longing for the light

I am visited by hungry ghosts

 

I think of all those encounters lately

where I have responded with anger

and perhaps worse,

defensiveness

 

jumping into conflict mode

rebutting, rebuking

challenging

 

making my stand, making my point

without having the peace and calmness

to be open

to listen

 

Why?

Why did they say that?

Where did that come from?

Is there any truth in what they say?

 

I think of my anxiety

my lifelong companion

I worry.  I worry about the little outpost of the kingdom which is serve

as it moves along, faithful, generous, compassionate

but aging

 

Will it be around in ten years, as it has been for 136 years past?

Will the next generation step-up?

How do we make the church authentic?

How do we draw people with diverse ideologies together into the circle of Sacred love?

How we become the servant body of Christ?

How do we make faith relevant?

 

And as I stare at my own reflection in the window

As I stare into the darkness

I realize

 

that the only way out of this wilderness

is to live life connected to Love

to a reality, a power that I cannot define, cannot capture

in a word such as God

but will call God for lack of a better word

 

that Love that created the universe

and was personified in Jesus

and even now

is

 

That Love that as it fills me

touches the anxiety

calms the anger

softens the need to defend

 

opens me up

 

this God

this Love

 

is my life and hope