Denial

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God is the denial of denial

          Meister Eckhart

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If God is the denial of denial

If God is truth (and fortunately love)

 

then is the denial of truth a denial of God?

and behaviorally is a failure to love a denial of God?

 

It has always mystified me how people can claim to be

“on God’s side,” can claim Jesus

and then overtly, persistently lie

 

I mean we all struggle, sometimes to embrace the truth

We do get sucked into lies, about ourselves and others

It happens

 

But I think about those

who have embraced the lie that the last election was stolen

who radically throw lies out there about others, who lie about themselves

 

I think about people who clearly know the truth but speak untruth

People who use lies as a way to manipulate and even harm

As a way to grab power or increase wealth

 

How can they do that, and then claim to be people who respect Jesus?

who is all about truth?

 

That gets me thinking about denying truth

I am overwhelmed by the plethora of ways we can deny truth and embrace untruth

 

and I wonder, what happens when we embrace lies?

what happens when we deny the obvious truth?

 

very often that denial of truth, that rejection of truth translates into action

 

it translates into an assault on our capital and our democracy

it translates into people being used as pawns

it translates into violence

it translates into injustice and inequity

it translates into a neglect of the poor

and a failure to welcome the stranger

 

it translates into the oppression and cruelty

 

a failure to be truthful translates into a failure to be loving

 

I understand that some people are just misled and misinformed

they have chosen to trust liars, which is sad

 

but for some this is willful

and in some cases this willful embrace of lies, this denial of truth

is done while at the same time, they claim to be those who are on God’s side.

 

and this thought often crosses my mind

“this person, who is so proudly claiming God, touting God, doesn’t really believe in God”

 

I mean seriously?

If they actually believed in the kind of God they are claiming

A God who is demanding and retributive

A God who seems to hate a lot of people and is willing to punish them eternally

 

Would they dare lie the way they do?

Would they dare act the way they do

 

In my head, they can’t really believe in God and do and say what they do.

they would not dare violate (which is exactly what they are doing)

the rules of the God they have coopted and appropriated

 

or perhaps I am way off, perhaps they just don’t have the same God that I do

perhaps it is as simple as this

they do not worship a God who is love

but rather a God who is manipulative, arbitrary, and all about abusive power.

 

Is it unbelief or a belief in a God of their own making

That is the problem?

 

I am not sure

But this I know.  My relationship with the Sacred

Is hard on denial

I cannot deny the truth

About myself, or my country, or the planet

I cannot deny impending fascism

Or the destruction of the planet

Or injustice

Or the pain of inequity

 

I cannot deny my own complicity

My own failures

My own need

 

God is the denial of denial

God demands that I see things as they really are, and see myself as I really am

And respond by letting God heal me, fill me, change me

And teach me to love