PURIFY

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PURIFY

 

All great spirituality is about letting go. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection show us how to win by losing. In fact, this “Path of Descent” could be called the metanarrative of the Bible. It is so obvious, consistent, and constant that it’s hidden in plain sight.

          Richard Rohr

 

God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction

          Meister Eckhart

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Forget original sin

I mean, really!

 

God created the world and it was

Good

 

And when angels sang over Bethlehem

It was to those with whom God

Was “well pleased”.

 

I am the first to admit that the image of God

woven into the fabric of our being

is more than a little blurred

 

there is no question that we human creatures can be ugly

Sinful if you like

Yes we give into fear

Yes, we get selfish and hoard

Yes we hate and misuse power

 

Yes we are all too often poster children

for the fall

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

But that is not our nature

It may be “who we are”

But it is also not who we are

 

which is why we need to be purified!

cleansed

 

Perhaps faith is as much a matter of unlearning as it is of learning

Perhaps “God is not found in the soul by adding anything,

but by a process of subtraction” (Meister Eckhart)

 

there are so many things to unlearn that do not work

Self-loathing

Fear

The need to win (be number one)

Some pretty profound selfishness (me first)

A desperate need to be liked and admired

 

We must unlearn so that we can learn

Not for the first time

That we are loved by God

That we do not have to fear

That winning isn’t everything

And that we gain more by giving than by grasping

 

Unlearning is hard work

it can be painful

purging, refining, reconstructing

being born again

 

and our hearts cry out to God

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”

(Psalm 51)

 

O Sacred One

O God

My God

 

It is all pretty simple, isn’t it?

 

The answer to everything

to sleepless nights, to torturous thoughts

to fear and anger

 

the answer to those things that distort original blessing

and blur the divine image

 

the secret to peace, hope, joy

and love

 

is placing ourselves in your loving hands

and letting You do

Your purifying

Thing

Creating in us a clean heart,

Putting new and right spirit within us

 

So why do we try to make it all

So much

About

Us?