Grace is the only way

God is love

or so we are told

 

God is love

so Jesus showed

 

God is love

and loves us

and wants us to love in return

 

creating a circle of love

a perichoresis

that swirls

creative, restoring empowering

 

drawing us in

into the depths of love

 

and then we love others

intimate with God

intimate with ourselves

we become intimacy catchers

 

people who see others

really see

hear others

really hear

 

people who connect with others

and walk with them

through everything

 

through joy and celebration

through questions and doubt

through fear

and anger

and pain

 

knowing

it is all about love

this immanent transcendent

reality we call “God”

this way of life we call “Kingdom”

 

but sometimes it seems

it is not about love

or connecting

or seeing

or hearing

 

it is about merit

it is about power and control and punishment

it is about ideological passion

 

it seems that it is possible to forget that God is love

and begin to think that God is

hard and judgmental

retributive

and even cruel

 

and suddenly

empathy and compassion are gone

healing and hope too

 

in their place is coercion

rigidity

and cruelty

 

and suddenly faith is no longer about the righteousness

the love of God

flowing through us

to those celebrating, struggling, fearful people around us

 

suddenly the righteousness of God becomes

self-righteousness

and we put ourselves in the place of God

 

and everything goes terribly wrong

we judge when God would forgive

we coerce when God would reach out in love

we oppress when God would set free

we become blind to the pain of others

we close our hearts

 

we step on the hurting

shame the poor

neglect the homeless

 

we create pain

we feed hopelessness

 

all the while convincing ourselves

that we are earning merit with this cruel and vindictive God we have created

 

this God we seem to believe

is as unable to enter into the pain of others

as we are

 

but

 

God is love

and God loves

and God will walk with us all

sticking with us

and loving us

when sometimes all the choices

are hard

and grace is the only way out