The Good Shepherd

Walk out of your house like a shepherd.

  (Sufi proverb)

Have you ever wondered about the strong love of Christ that drew Peter and the other rough fishermen?  Or the hardened tax collecter, Matthew?  Or the woman at the well, whose heart had been broken five times and who must have developed a shell to protect her from further rejection?

When Jesus said, "I am the Good Shepherd,"  He was not using metaphor; He was putting words to His heart's desire to shepherd, to gather, to draw in those who wandered this earth without a home, without family, without love.  He carried with Him the love of God for all mankind, the cry of the Old Testament prophets to return to the Lord and to find pasture, to lie down in safety and without anxiety.

Jesus wanted to gather the lost and forsaken and to lead them beside still waters and to give them rest for their souls, and He promised that no one who came to Him would ever be turned away.

The Sufi proverb above is a powerful one; when we leave our homes "as shepherds," we are on the lookout for those who need shepherding, for those who are hurting, for those who are hungering for human touch and connection.  The love of God placed in us by the Holy Spirit gives us the heart and mind of Christ:  we too want to shepherd, to give respite and comfort, to provide for, those we meet along the way. 

Just for today, let us leave our homes like shepherds and discover who God puts in our path---watching for what God does is always a surprise and an adventure!

The Heart of Christ

Spiritual union is more powerful than physical union.  If I go to the Father, those who are united with me go with me to the Father.  If we ourselves stand in the Presence of God, all those wrapped inside our hearts stand with us in His Presence; they too must receive, even unknowingly, the love of God that we ourselves receive.  As long as they are united to us, they receive all that we are and have from God.  Therefore, let us exclude from our hearts no one who comes to us.

All of us want to be united to God the Father in an eternal embrace.  What we do not realize is that He has already poured out all of His Divinity, His Person, His Love into the the heart of HIs beloved Son, Jesus. 

Jesus, in turn, has united us to Himself so that we too can experience the eternal love of God given to Him.  If we stand outside of Jesus, there is no way for us to receive Divine Love; we simply have no capacity to receive all that the Father gives us.  The person who drinks by teaspoons will never quench his thirst.

To enter the heart of Christ is to experience the love of the Father for Him and in Him, for the world.  To enter the heart of Christ is at the same time to experience the pain of rejection from the world that does not want to stand in the Presence of God, that does not want what the Father offers us of Himself.

The Love of God

God is close to the broken-hearted,

and those bowed down in spirit He saves.

When I teach, it is the weak and the helpless who draw my love and mercy.  The strong and the sleek make me smile as I enjoy their energy and independence, and I rejoice in their health and strength.  But those bowed down in spirit, without hope, make me want to draw close to them in love and compassion.  I want to pour out in them all that I have and am---all that I myself have received from God.  I want to walk with them, support them, uphold them until they grow strong and sleek and confident and independendent.  I want to show them what they cannot now see---the beauty inside them, who they were meant to be.

Is this not in me the love of God for the world that cannot save itself?

The Power and the Glory

Your word resurrects me, O Lord,

enlivens me,

strengthens me,

inspires me,

teaches me,

sets me on the right path,

and guides me.

Your teaching is alive and active:

"Whether you go to the left or to the right,

your own ears will hear a voice behind you saying,

'This is the path; walk ye in it' (Is. 30:20).

Your word/ teaching/ instruction

never fails, never disappoints,

is never too late to save me.

"Morning by morning, You open my ears,

as one long dead, to hear Your [living, active, and spoken] Word:"

"Lazarus, Come forth!"



What Happened to Me?

I don't know Who or What put the question;

I don't even know when it was put.  I don't even remember answering. 

But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone (or Something)

and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, has a goal.

                                    Dag Hammarskjold, 20th C. Swedish diplomat,

                                           Secretary-General of the United Nations:1953-1960

At some moment in our lives, like Mary, we become aware of a Presence outside of ourselves, a Presence asking us for surrender.  Like Dag Hammarskjold, we may not be able to put our finger on the exact moment or the exact question, but we are aware that we have surrendered and that from that time, our life has a purpose and a direction that is guided by Someone other than ourselves.

One test of a genuine spiritual experience resides in the outcome:  good comes out of an authentic experience.  No longer are our lives narrowly focused on what we can gain, but now on rather what we can give.  Sirach 24 describes the direction, or flow, of a genuine spiritual experience when it describes the gift of wisdom:

The first man never finished comprehending wisdom,

nor will the last succeed in fathoming her.

For deeper than the sea are her thoughts;

her counsels, than the great abyss.

Now I, like a rivulet from her stream,

channeling the waters into a garden,

Said to myself, "I will water my plants,

my flower bed, I will drench;"

And suddenly, this rivulet of mine became a river,

then this stream of mine, a sea.

Thus do I send my teachings forth shining like the dawn,

to become known far off.

Thus do I pour out instruction like prophecy

and bestow it on generations to come.

Most of us want our lives to count for something, to have direction and purpose.  We want to leave an inheritance to the next generation, a memorial that sums up our own wisdom and meaning in life.  According to the biblical writer, "soaking up" wisdom is the beginning of sending for a river of blessing to others. 

Prayer is the beginning of love and service.  Catherine of Siena (1340-1444) spent three years in prayer before going out to nurse the poor, preach in public, and counsel the Pope.  Teresa of Avila was a contemplative nun who founded sixteen reformed convents, and John of the Cross wrote breathtaking poetry out of his experience of prayer.

Like Dag Hammarskjold, there is an interior shift in all of us which then gives direction and meaning to the rest of our lives.  We may not know the moment that shift occurred, but afterwards, we see that it has occurred and that from that time, everything was different.





Amen and Amen

Today I just need to quote C.S.Lewis:

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine.  A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else.  Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself.  He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on.  There is no other.  That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion.  God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.  There is no such thing.

That is the key to history.  Terrific energy is expended---civilizations are built up---excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong.  Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin.  In fact, the machine conks.  It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down.  They are trying to run it on the wrong juice.  That is what Satan has done to us humans.

                                                                                          from Mere Christianity

I just love Lewis' ability to put things so plainly and so logically.  I wish I could do the same in my writing.  Many people have asked whether it is possible to be good without going to church, and looking around us, we would have to agree that it is possible to "be good" without religion, or at least without Christianity.  However, I don't think that's the same as being peaceful within, or having joy, or having love for others----the aim is not to "be good;" I think that's a red herring.  The Pharisees, after all, were the "best" in their culture, but they seemed to have no love, peace, or joy.  The saints, above all others in their time and cultures, seemed to consider themselves the worst of sinners---they would not have agreed that they were "good" at all.  I, too, before my conversion, used to think that if I were not "good," at least I wasn't as bad as "some people" I knew.  What arrogance!  What ignorance of Biblical truth!  It took the love and mercy of God, and a small miracle on His part, to show me how much of a sinner I am and always was.

The point is not to be "good," but to run on God's own love, peace, joy, and energy.  If we fail to "run" on Him, we will eventually "conk out," come to the end of our own resources.  Only He has/is unlimited joy, peace, energy, truth, love....

In my own search, I once took a class with a Hari Krishna/ yogi, and asked him whence comes the "power" to "love our enemies and do good to those who persecute you."  I knew that power did not reside within me.  The Hari Krishna had no answer for me; he did not know.  And though I myself was a life-long Catholic who never missed Mass, I did not know either.  Now I know:  it is not I that live, but Christ that lives in me to the glory of the Father.  It is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us that "sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God" (agape, in Greek).  That is, the Holy Spirit in us is the Divine Source of our love for God and God's love for others around us, including our enemies. 

Now I have experienced that love within me for those who persecuted me and for those who tried to destroy me.  And I have experienced the "peace that passes all understanding," even in the face of death.  And I know that the aim is not to "be good" in this life, but to enjoy the kingdom of heaven even now, while we live on this earth.  We are made to "run on God," and there is no substitute for His energy in us.

And Jesus wept.

Jesus told Gertrude of Helfta, a 12th-century monastic scholar, that He couldn't bear to be separated from her now that they "knew" one another.  He used the analogy of an adult who loses a limb in later life compared to someone who had been born without the limb, saying that the adult would always sorely miss what had once been part of him, whereas the baby would never have known what it was like to function with that arm or leg.

He showed Gertrude the depth of His love for her in the pain that separation would cost Him.  Now, we don't usually think of God experiencing the "pain of separation," but anyone who has been separated from a loved one, either by death or by emotional separation, knows what Jesus was talking about.  C.S. Lewis said after the death of his wife that it was not even like losing an arm or a leg, but like one's heart being ripped out.  Anyone experiencing this kind of loss would do anything to experience being re-united with the one "lost."

Maybe this is why God was willing to "give His only begotten Son so that the world would not perish, but have everlasting life."  The Cross is God's vulnerability to the love/ affection of mankind:  You can't make me stop loving you; no matter what you do to me, I will continue to love you beyond all measure and continue to do good to you forever.  "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Jesus wept at seeing the pain of Martha and Mary when they lost their brother, probably their only source of protection and subsistence in that culture, in addition to the love they bore for him.  He wept over Jerusalem because they "did not recognize the day of their visitation"---much as Sodom and Gomorrah did not recognize the presence of angels in their midst---saying, "How often I wanted to gather you as a mother hen gathers her chicks (to protect them from harm). 

What God does is eternal and unchanging; today He weeps because we will not also be "gathered" and united as a family, as lovers, as children of the same God and Father.  He weeps at our pain of separation from Him and from one another.  And still our hearts are hardened......

The Dividing Line

How do we know when we have "crossed over" from death to life, in the words of St. Paul? 

In my mind, the dividing line is when the words of Scripture begin to take on life for us, when the Word of God is no longer like other words that we evaluate, judge, assess, and argue with, when it is no longer "someone else's truth," but our truth---the truth of our innermost being.

I remember when the Bible came alive in my own life---I was in the hospital facing major surgery, and my roommate, a young girl, prayed for me to receive the "baptism of the Holy Spirit."  I did not really know what this meant, but I wanted whatever it was she had, so I asked her to pray for me to receive it too.  As soon as I came out of surgery (without a general anesthetic--long story), I reached over and grabbed the Gideon Bible out of the bedside table, opened to the Acts of the Apostles, and began reading.  For the first time in my life, I was reading my story, not just "a" story.  As I read about the Apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, I said, "This is what just happened to me!"  And I kept reading:  from the Acts to the Letters of St. Paul, to Revelations, and then beginning with Genesis, I read the entire Bible back to Revelations.  Then I began studying what I had previously read. 

Now this was no "determination" on my part; I was reading the truth about my own life in those pages.  I couldn't stop reading.  Obviously, whatever had happened to me in the hospital did not come from within me, but from without.  I had received a gift through the hands and heart of a 22-year-old girl who had experienced the same gift in her own life.  I worried then that I would somehow lose the gift, that I would let it go through laziness or indifference after awhile.  So I asked my doctor, who had also prayed for me a few weeks previously in his office---I wanted to know how to sustain the gift.  He laughed and said, "You don't have the Holy Spirit; He has you---and He's not letting go!"  And then he told me about his own "baptism" 14 years before.  "It just keeps getting better and better," he said to me. 

That was in 1977, thirty-four years ago, and now I can testify myself to the truth of his words---it just keeps getting better and better.  The Holy Spirit continues to this day to open to me the Word of God as my truth, my life, my essence--a secret I could never have penetrated on my own.

"If you knew the Gift of God," Jesus told the sinner at the well, "and He it is that speaks with you, you would ask Him, and He would give you a spring of living water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:10).  If we are thirsty, we need to get to the Well of Living Water and ask for the overflow of the Spirit in our lives.  Then the Word of God becomes for us an ever- renewable and renewing resource instead of a historic document. 

Come to a Land I will show you....

And God said to Abraham, "Leave your people and your father's house and come to a land I will show you...."

Why?  to eke out a meager existence and to live as a stranger in the land of others?

To live in fear?  To be anxious every day of one's life? 

Or to be in peace?  To know that God will never leave you or abandon you?  To know that your descendents will be well taken care of and will have nothing to fear? 

How did Abraham learn these things? 

On the way to the land of Promise. 

On the way, as he was ambushed by the retainers of Pharoah, and as Sarah was taken as captive into Pharoah's harem. 

On the way, as God delivered them both out of harm and sent them on their way with the riches of Egypt. 

On the way, as he re-entered the land of Promise and found riches so great that he and Lot needed to separate to feed the flocks. 

On the way, as the land-owners were willing to sell him wells and land to sustain his household. 

On the way, as Abraham was able to defeat aborginal armies and take back what belonged to him.

On the way, as he trusted God with Isaac and all his inheritance. 

And how will we learn the secrets of God?  On the way, if we are willing to leave what we know and begin the journey.

"Feed me"

Delight yourself in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart (Ps. 37).

Now to Him Who is able to immeasurably give us more than we can ask or imagine,

glory be to Him generation to generation (Eph. 3:20).

What are the "desires of the heart" of one who "delights himself in the Lord"?  Wouldn't it be that others who we love could also find delight and beauty in the Lord?  If someone says to us, "look at that beautiful sunset," it is only because they want to share with us their own delight and joy, their appreciation of the beauty they see.    But if someone says, "look at the beauty of the Lord," we become afraid and suspicious that we will be asked to convert, to become a Christian, to change our way of living.

Jesus said to the woman at the well, "if you knew the gift of God, and who it is who speaks with you, you would ask, and He would give you, a fountain of living water springing up to eternal life."  Now I wonder what is threatening about that.  Jesus did not ask the woman for a change of life, but only for a cup of water.  Why are we afraid of God, who is able to give us "immeasurably" more than we can ask or imagine, the God who wants to give us "the desires of our hearts"?

I think maybe the problem is that we have never read for ourselves the Word of God, so we fail to grasp the desires of God.  Men at different times have interpreted the Word to God to "prove" their positions, but that does not mean that we then know or understand the Word.  It takes the Spirit which "blows where it will" to illuminate the truth that God wants to put in our hearts, and only the Spirit of God knows what that truth is, the truth that each one of us needs to hear at any given moment. 

We need to listen to one another, for God ministers to us through the body of the church, but listening to one another never excuses us from listening also and first to God Himself.  "The Comforter will lead you into all truth," said Jesus.  "I have much more to teach you, but you cannot now [absorb it], but when He comes, He will take what is mine and give it to you" (Jn. 14:....)

When we go to a fine restaurant and the chef says, "Let me feed you," we put ourselves in his hands, knowing that he will bring out only the best he has to place before us.  Of course, we can refuse his offer, saying, "No, someone told me that I need to eat the fish," and then we are in control of the meal, but we have missed the delight of the chef and the best he can give us.

I think maybe we need to pick up the Scriptures and say, "Feed me, Lord, for only You have the words of eternal life."

The Divine Dynamic

Most of us probably grew up imagining the Divine Dynamic along the lines of God handing down the 10 Commandments which were to be obeyed.  Then, people in authority (Jewish and Christian) would interpret "how" the commands were to be obeyed---i.e., in Jewish terms, "building a fence around the commandments."  For example, exactly how are we to "honor our father and mother"?  What does that mean in this circumstance?  So now we have the Commandments + the rules, or guidelines.  If we are good and obedient, we are rewarded with eternal life; if not, then...well...some kind of punishment.  In the meantime, God stood back and waited to see what we would do.

More accurately, though, is an entirely different kind of dynamic:  God wants us to rule the earth "in His image and likeness,"  with His Spirit.  So He has said to us: "Here are my standards; here is what it means to live as my Image and Likeness on earth---but the only way you can do / be this is to allow my Spirit to dwell in you to carry out my will and purpose for you.  Let me breathe into you and through you every day; be still, and let Me live in you.  I can do it; I will do it; I want to do it.  Don't worry that you cannot do it---I've already taken care of that. 

"Eternal life begins now, because you belong to Me, and I am all you seek.  Don't worry about reward and punishment if you allow Me to express my love through you---you will automatically do all that I command."

C.S. Lewis (again) says, "If we want joy, love, peace, goodness, then we must get close to, and even into, the thing that has them.  These are not trophies that God hands out to the deserving."  This is the stuff of eternal life, a divine dynamic that begins even on earth---but it is "caught," not "earned."  So God is not standing back waiting to see how we are doing in the school of life; He is entering into our lives every day with His Spirit, teaching, correcting, annointing, rewarding, settling, soothing, healing, spilling out of us, transforming our weakness into strength, helping, building up and tearing down---For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of sound mind (2 Tim 1: __).

Who would not want to enter the dance of divine life?  Only those who cannot see it happening right before their eyes---those whom "the god of this world has blinded so that a veil covers their eyes to this very day when the Gospel is read."

Spiritual Solar Panels

This morning, I realized that the spirit God has placed within us is like solar panels on the roof of a house.  Our human spirit soaks up energy from the Holy Spirit, and then that spiritual energy illumines the mind and warms the soul/emotions.  Deuteronomy says, and Jesus quoted:  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul.  In Biblical terms, "heart" refers to the inner man, or the spirit.  The "soul" is what the Greeks called the psyche, referring to the mind and the emotions together.

Now, we can never "approach" God with our minds alone, darkened as they are by sin and spiritual ignorance.  We need the light of revelation, given to us in the Word of God and through the Spirit of Truth, to illumine our minds and to give us understanding of the things of God.

And, much as we try to give ourselves peace through medication, drugs, alcohol, transcendental meditation, etc.,  peace, joy, love all elude our best efforts.  These are all gifts (literally, fruits) of the Spirit of God dwelling within us.  We cannot manufacture these gifts for ourselves; we can only receive them. 

All energy, all light given to those on earth comes from the sun/ Son of God.  We can be receiving stations, storing up light and energy for a darkened world if we choose to face the Light, much as solar panels must be mounted on a southern exposure.  C.S. Lewis says that if we want to be warm, we must stand by the fire.  If we want light, we must not remain in the dark, but go toward the light. 

Again and again, I have been amazed at how the Holy Spirit illumines my mind in ways that I cannot achieve by my best efforts.  Yesterday, I searched the house for a lost check, one that I received at Christmas and stuck in a book for safe-keeping.  But with all the books in this house, and with all the books I read simultaneously, I could not locate or recall the book which held the check.  Finally, giving up the search, I asked the Holy Spirit to show me where I had put the check.  During the night, I woke up and saw (in my mind) a clear image of the check under my bedside lamp.  I was pretty sure that I would have seen it there if that's where it was, since the lamp has a narrow, open base.  But in the morning, I noticed two books that I had stuck under the glass-topped table which held the lamp.  Of course, one of those books held the lost check.  Coincidence?  Not unless you want to admit that this kind of "coincidence" gets me through almost every day of my life. 

Peace---joy---light---understanding--love---kindness:  if we want the radiance coming from above, we must face the Son and allow our human solar panels to soak up His gifts.

Rachel and Leah

Jacob worked 14 years for Rachel and counted it as nothing, because "he loved Rachel more than Leah."

But God, "seeing that Leah was unloved, opened her womb, but Rachel was barren" (Gen 29:31).  Leah named her first-born Reuben, meaning "The Lord has seen my affliction."  Leah continued to have sons and naming them according to her feelings of being unloved.  In the meantime, Rachel, who was most loved, continued to grieve because she was barren and could not produce sons, a sign of Divine dis-favor in Israel.  After all, God's first commandment was to "increase and multiply," and the curse for Eve's disobedience was difficulty in child-bearing.  Of the 12 sons of Jacob, Leah bore 10, and Rachel died bearing her second.  Who was favored most?  We cannot tell; both were favored in different ways.

Like Mary and Martha in the Gospel story, some of us are more productive, but grieve because we are not more contemplative, while the contemplatives grieve because they are not more productive.  Therese of Liseux, a cloistered nun, wanted more that anything else to be a missionary, to spread the love of Jesus throughout the world.  Strangely, because of her writings, she is now considered the patron saint of missionaries.  God knows how to satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts.

He knows how to balance our natural tendencies in such a way that He can make the "rich man poor," and the poor rich.  Francis of Assisi was the son of a wealthy merchant, but when God finished with him, Francis became known as the "little poor man."  None of us can compare who we are or what we do to the lives of others.  The small edelweiss has as much beauty and usefulness as the majestic oak, although neither would believe it to be true from their own perspective.  God has placed one on the top of a mountain, and one in the forest for His own pleasure and purpose.  Someone once said, "Bloom where you are planted."  Be who you are---it's all you can be.  And leave the rest to God.

Mr. Helpless Jesus

Mr. Helpless Jesus dying on the Cross of men's hatred and rejection of the things of God,

life-blood spilling out of You, who can now do no more good on earth,

did you mean for me to be helpless too?

I read today about one man shooting another for "disrespecting" him,

and about one woman breaking the jaw of another with a beer bottle.

And I wonder---where is Your Spirit poured out upon the world?

Am I helpless or just indifferent to the suffering around me?

Can I make a difference, Mr. Helpless Jesus, or am I too pre-occupied?

I know You still live on earth in me---but have I nailed You to the cross of my own convenience and comfort, so that you are still helpless to help these, the least of your brethren?  Have I made You "helpless" today?

Why Seek God?

C. S. Lewis always makes me think, just as he usually turns standard thinking upside down.  In The Screwtape Letters, he writes:

Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist's shop.

Now most of us would, without thinking, adopt the notion that of course, mass conversions to Christianity would be the means to a just society.  And a more just society might be one outcome of the true conversion of an entire society.  But if that is the end we seek in our relationship with God, we will undoubtedly be disappointed and say with the writer of Ecclesiastes:  "All is futility, a chasing after the wind." 

God is not a means to an end, just as other people are not means to our ends.  We do not cultivate relationships (hopefully) to establish ourselves or our families or our nations in peace and security.  If we do, we will find that we have been pursuing nothing at all.  A relationship is for the sake of knowing the other person, for delight in the other--go back to yesterday's entry on the Wedding Celebration. 

Of course, delight in relationship spills over into the world closest to the couple; there is peace and joy and beauty --- space into which others may enter for respite.  But those who set out to establish utopian societies on earth ultimately failed, no matter which tools, patterns, or "faiths" they employed. 

Those who join a religious group like the Franciscans, the Carmelites, or the Jesuits do so because they first have a (or want a deeper) relationship with God, who then directs their life mission into certain channels.  Even those who set out to change the world by joining the Peace Corps or Feed the Children do so because of an inner-directed spirit.  They are not seeking to convert societies but to serve them.

A poem by Edwin Hatch (1835-1889) gives us some insight into the kind of purity of heart that accompanies those who seek God:

Breathe on me, Breath of God

Fill me with life anew,

That I may love what thou dost love,

And do what thou wouldst do.

Breathe on me, Breath of God,

Until my heart is pure,

Until with thee I will one will

To do and to endure.

Breathe of me, Breath of God,

Til I am wholly thine

Until this earthly part of me

Glows with thy fire divine.

We usually think of St. Paul as setting out to change the world after his encounter with the living Christ on the way to Damascus.  However, Paul went first to Arabia (presumably the Transjordan Desert) for three years and then to Damascus  before meeting for the first time with the disciples in Jeruslem.  His "conversion" on the road was not a one-moment event, but a gradual transformation over a period of time, until "this earthly part of [him] glow[ed]" with the divine fire, until, as he later said, "it is no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me to the glory of the Father." 

This is also what we seek---not to change the world, but to be set on fire until Christ in us can accomplish His will in us.

The Dance of Life

Jesus performed His first miracle at a wedding---and that speaks volumes.  A wedding is a celebration of two persons who love, and their love extends outward from themselves to a whole circle of family and friends.  The love of family and friends extends back to support the fledgling love of the couple. 

At the celebration, first the couple dance together; then, each dances with the parent of his/her partner; then, everyone dances, from the 2-year old to the 92-year old.  All join in the dance of life.  There is wine; there is food; there is dance; and there is love.  All is metaphor; all is truth.

People are fond of saying, according to C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, that "God is Love."  But, as Lewis says, those words have no real meaning unless there are at least two Persons engaged in the dance.  Love is the energy, the communication, the flow between [at least] two persons.  If God is only One Person, then before the world came into existence, God was not love.  But Christians hold that from the beginning---no, from all eternity,----the living, dynamic dance of love existed, and from that dance, everything else came into being. 

At a wedding, at a public celebration, all enter into the energizing spirit; those who cannot celebrate must either get drunk to remain alone, or leave early.  The Spirit of Love between Persons flows out of God to embrace all those who are present and invited to the feast.  Either we enter into the Spirit and celebrate, or we remain on the outside looking in.  At a wedding, there is no distinction between beliefs or those who are good enough---there are only those who are friends of the bride and groom, or friends of the family.  There are only those who are willing to come and those who exclude themselves from the celebration.

Shall we dance?

What Does God Want?

The entire story of salvation is contained in the opening sentence of Genesis:

When God began creating the heavens and the earth,

when the earth was wild and waste

(tohu va-vohu in the Hebrew, meaning "emptiness)

rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters---

God said: Light, Be! And there was light.

The entire Bible, from beginning to end is the same story, over and over:

From emptiness:  teeming life, fertility

From darkness:  light

From trouble: rejoicing

From ashes: beauty

From chaos: oder and harmony

From mourning: praise and thanksgiving

From death: life

Adam  --  Noah  --  Abraham  --  Joseph  --  Moses  --  Joshua  --  The Judges  -- 

The Kings  --  The Prophets  --  Jesus

All of these represented a new beginning after a world gone dark and chaotic, always leading a new creation/generation out of the grasp of evil.

What does God want?    One biblical passage reads: Consider Abraham when he was called; he was but one [man], but out of him God formed a nation.

God wants us, like the people above, to come out of darkness into His marvelous light, as Peter writes.  He wants us to turn the Valley of Achor (soreness, weeping, lamentation) into springs of flowing water, through His grace and strength.  He wants us to become "new creations" out of which He can draw a new generation of light. 

The choice is ours:  do we remain tohu-va-vohu, wild and waste, or allow the Holy Spirit to make something beautiful out of our chaos? 

                  Light, Be!   and Light was.  And God saw that it was good. 

       "Being good" may not always be an option; praying for the light always is.