May 23, 2016

God is Love (21)
1 John 4:8

Love always protects (2)
1 Corinthians 13

Who are we to call God a liar? God is Love; and we claim Love always protects. But it is often very difficult to see that protection; often all we see is the broken mess that seems to be our life. Now how does one move to consider life a grand adventure when all we can see is the pain? That is not an easy question to answer, and for many of us forms the basic question of life. I have written a book on this topic, tentatively called The 12 Steps to Joy and Happiness, which should be published this year. But we can put ourselves, by putting our personal selves into the hands of our higher power, our God as some call It, and rest assured that this infinite power will protect us from the effects of the events that our occurring in our lives.
One of the keys to understanding life is to see all the occurrences in our life, the good and the bad, as only events within which we are given a choice of how we perceive that event: as a positive event or an negative event. Now you say, this takes all the excitement and high level joy out of anything; and yes sometimes it does, as it causes life to become more even-keeled, eliminating most extreme levels of euphoria but also eliminating the most extreme levels of despair and fear. Approaching life in this manner always ends up with life seen not just as a series of ‘things’, but a lively series always leading to something grander and more fulfilling. Life is good, and it will always become something even better – even death.
That is how Jesus saw life; one series of events leading to the next, all of which constituted a life well lived.
We have the opportunity to see life as a joy in all that occurs. Thus God protects us, always protects us, from the worst calamity of all: that life has no meaning; that we just exist, that we are here and that is all there is.
But God is good. Therefore Life is good. That feeling arises at all times, and is our bulwark against the nay-sayers and the callers of doom that crowd our airwaves. One whole political party appears to be able to thrive only by preaching gloom and doom by dwelling on fear of the all possibilities that may (or, as usual, may not) occur, that we must arm ourselves to the teeth to survive, that only by subscribing to ‘me first’ can one find peace. Instead, when we follow that path, all one finds is pain, fear and loss of trust: which means that all we have left is ourselves, which is the worst thing that can occur on our planet of over 7 billion human souls. If we think that the only person we can trust is ourselves, we are left destitute, no matter how much money and things and power we seem to have accumulated.
God is not only always with us, God IS us. Our very fabric of existence is the very energy of God, slowed down to the point that it seems immobile to our senses, but in truth is in such rapid motion that the motion seems motionless. We are, as stated in Genesis, the very Image of the infinite Being we call God, Wisdom, and many other titles, but all refer to the very fabric of Life itself; for conscious life has no explanation other than the inexplicable. Many have devoted their lives trying to explain life, and have failed, let alone conscious life. (Conscious life is that life that can ask “Who am I?”) No other creature asks that simple question: “Why?” other creatures show obvious love, often mating for life, but none can ask that basic question: “Why”. Such a simple difference, but that question leads to the impossible: we begin to imagine an answer, and that is the difference between humanity and the rest of the creatures on our planet.
And that difference, the ability to ask such a simple question, illustrates the protective layer of God. For by the simple question “Why”, humanity began to define itself some 70,000 years ago, reaching for the stars, and leading to where we are today on the very verge of seeing God face to face through our science.
Will we recognize that Face when we see it? Do we recognize the Face of God when we look at our neighbor? No, it wears the mask of everything around us, leaving nothing out, but including everything there is; so once more, it will require us to see the Divine implications of these discoveries to see the Face of God that is everywhere around us.
So, yes, God is ever protecting of us. We will recognize that protection when we pass out of this energy level of existence to enter into the wider energy level that is just beyond our senses.

“You need not fear any dangers at night
Or sudden attacks during the day
Or the plagues that strike in the dark.”
                       Psalm 91 5-6 (GNT)

Meditation

Oh God, my protector and shield, I place my life and the lives of all that I love into Your care. I know You will protect them from harm, and keep them safe in the folds of Your Love for all eternity. I set aside all fears, knowing in my heart that only good will occur even as their life flowers and appears to fade, as all life must in this plane, for that is the rhythm of life in the realm of ‘time’, that is all life that we see here. But beyond this plane lies the continued life, for none of us die, we only change. Our very essence, that part that makes each of us an ‘I’, remains, and then will grow by leaps into the realm of ‘no-time’ that is the essence 0f Your Being.
I am Yours, my Wisdom, for now and for eternity.
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