Mar 03, 2016

God is Love (2)
1 John 4:8

Love is patient. (2)
1 Corinthians 13

I spoke of how God has been patient with humanity as a whole, but how about God being patient with you and I in our everyday life? We have been taught that God is a Judge, and God has written down in the Book of Life, all we have done, the good and the bad, and we will be weighed on that margin between the Good and the Bad, and will be punished as the weight of scales moves to or fro. We have been told that we must pay for all the evil we have done (from some list or other, depending on who we hear), for after all God is Justice Supreme!
We believe this for this is how humanity believes of itself, and we have always made God in our image and likeness, and we cannot believe that God would behave any different. But we ignore the basic quote from the first letter of John, that, indeed, “God is Love, and they who abide in Love abide in God.”, insist that this line means that “We must abide in God” (whatever that means) according to this formula or that formula to be true.
Jesus expressed the Love of God in his parable known as “the Prodigal Son”, but this story is actually a story of the “Loving Father”. “So he (the son) got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20). This has been interpreted to say that repentance is required before forgiveness. But I believe, as do the Franciscans, that Jesus was speaking of the Love of the Father/Mother (God) and not of the fault of the son, for the story is clear that the son had no true repentance for his actions, but was acting only out of hunger. For Isaiah states “Before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24). So we see that God knows our heart rather than our words and actions, and judgment is not part of the equation. For above all, “God is Love,” and God acts out of love, only Love, and Love overrides justice with mercy.
But how does God ignore our actions, our killing one another, our lust for others, our greed as expressed by our actions, our selfishness that ignores the pain in the world, all the negative actions that seem to overwhelm our world that is in so much pain? How does God ignore my actions that have been so injurious to others, our lack of love to others?
God knows who we are at the core: we are the embodiment of God Itself, our souls are as God made them, as the Image of God Itself, (remember Genesis?), created, as a growing Image of God to become, eventually, the embodiment of God in the physical world. But we, like all of humanity at this stage of our growth, are sill in the toddler stage, and like the toddler, stretches out to grab that last piece of chocolate cake that seems just out of reach, causing us to topple the milk that is in front of us. Thus God loves us even more (if more than that infinite Love can be imagined) and smiles at our antics, knowing that as we mature we will be able to rejoice in the presence of God in our physical life, living in the Kingdom of God that we are immersed in but can not see.
Thus the patience of God is there for us to see as we mature. And society as whole is maturing, bit by bit. Right now progress is occurring at a rate that we can see in our lifetimes, as the events of war has become less and less in the past 100years. In the early 20th century tens of millions died in wars, during the second half with the wars in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia millions died, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq tens of thousands died, a slowing pace of death that is a remarkable sign of our personal growth in our inner spirit, the growth of the spirit of humanity, that Image of God on earth.
We can see for ourselves how we, all of humanity, are growing, and yes, not only does God not judge us, but God sees as perfect, as perfect as when we were created into the physical world. Each and everyone of us, including you and me, are perfect, as difficult as that may be to imagine.

“for God will give God’s angels
Charge concerning you,
To guard you in all your ways.
They will bear up in their hands,
That you do not strike
Your foot against a stone.”
                                      Psalm 91:12

Meditation

My loving Mother/Father, my Eternal Guide, I bow in gratitude for the Love that You have showered upon me in this world of physicality. You have always been close to me, inside and outside and surrounding me in a shield of Love every moment of my present life, and I have been blessed to be able to see and taste Your love throughout my life. You have been in and of my life if I was aware of that fact or not, lifting me up in Love “lest I dash a foot against a stone”. Your gentle being in my life has given me joy even when my behavior has been other than joyous or giving, and I have too often just accepted this as my right, instead of seeing these events as a gift of Your Love that floods me life to overflowing. I humbly thank You in gratitude that I have but this time to offer You my life so that I can move ever deeper into the awareness of the absolute Love that fills my life. Accept my gratitude, and lift me up into your glory and bliss as I become more and more aware of the Kingdom of God that lies within me.
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