1. PRAYER
Prayer to an Evolutionary God
You accept us--at times of self-doubt
Thank you, God of all,
Co-creator of our world,
For allowing us to be imperfectly made:
Because it makes us, if we are wise, forgiving.
Do you accept us as we are?
We condemn people too quickly:
We judge them for flawed thinking, disguised egotism,
Unworthy acquisitiveness, or skewed opinions.
But we can forgive them once we accept our own shadow,
And realize how well we ourselves fit
Into the ranks of a less than perfect human race.
You, Holy God, accept each of us,
Prophets tell us, just as we are:
Provided our moral judgments of others
Are reciprocally generous and compassionate.
Imperfection fits this evolving reality,
For the universe thrives on diversity,
Including random failure,
One of the very preconditions for the unfolding advances.
May it be so.
- William Cleary
2. MEDITATION
4.NARRATIVE
Love is not really an action that you do. Love is what and who you are, in your deepest essence.
Love is a place that already exists inside of you, but is also greater than you. That’s the paradox. It’s within you and yet beyond you. This creates a sense of abundance and more-than-enoughness, which is precisely the satisfaction and deep peace of the True Self. You know you’ve found a well that will never go dry, as Jesus says (see John 4:13-14). Your True Self, God’s Love in you, cannot be exhausted.
Material gifts decrease when you give them away. Spiritual gifts, by contrast, increase the more you use them. Yes! You get more love by letting it flow through you, just as modeled by the Trinity. If you love, you will become more loving. If you practice patience, you will become more patient. If you stop the Divine Flow, you will be stopped up (“sin”).
Love is not something you can bargain for, nor is it something you can attain or work up to—because love is your very structural and essential identity—created in the image of the Trinity. When you are living in conscious connection with this Loving Inner Presence, you are in your True Self. God is forever united to this love within you; it is your soul, the part of you that always says yes to God. God always sees God in you—and “cannot disown God’s own self” (2 Timothy 2:13).
Many Christians live with a terrible sense of being rejected, because their religion is basically a worthiness game where no one really wins. That’s precisely not the Good News. It’s bad news.
The Gospel will always be misinterpreted by the false self in terms of some kind of climbing or achieving. Since the false self can’t even understand the command to love one’s enemies, it has to disregard the message as naive, which is exactly what most of Christian history has done.
Jesus’ rather clear teaching on love of enemies has been consistently ignored by all the mainline churches. Christians have been fighting one war after another, and excluding, torturing, and killing enemies right and left because the false self can never understand the Gospel. Yet we have been baptizing, confirming, giving communion to, and even ordaining false selves throughout our history. It is probably unavoidable, and God surely must be patient.
Once, after I gave an anti-war sermon, a businessman came up to me and said, “Well, Father, maybe in an ideal world. . . .” I know he meant well, but that’s what we’ve done with most of the teaching of Jesus. We interpret his meaning for some ideal world. Of course, the ideal world is never going to come so we can just ignore 99% of the actual teaching of Jesus, as the institutional church (and I too!) have usually done. We concentrate instead on things that Jesus never once talked about, like birth control, homosexuality, and abortion—bodily “sins” because the body can most easily carry shame. We shouldn’t disregard bodily shame or addictions, but they are not the core problem.
Jesus focused on issues of power, prestige, and possession—which all of us have largely ignored. I don’t think the church has had intentional bad will. It has simply tried to get the false self to live the Gospel, and that will never work. In other words, we’ve tried to have a church without fundamental transformation. Thus, we whittle down the whole Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus’ direct teaching that “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword” (Matthew 26:52); and we look for absolutes in ever new secular places—like the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution which allows us to carry weapons. And this is done by a vast majority of Bible-quoting Christians.
*These thoughts were originally shared as one of Richard’s Daily Meditations. Sign up for them here.
Dear Heavenly Father,
You are my shepherd, and in your presence, I lack nothing.
Your guidance and care have led me through green pastures and beside still waters.
I am so thankful for your constant provision and protection in my life.
As I stand before you, Lord, I am reminded of the very real love you have for me.
Your love is like a seal over my heart and arm, a seal that binds me to you.
It burns with the intensity of a mighty flame, unyielding as the grave itself. Just as many waters cannot quench love, I am reminded that your love for me is unwavering and unending.
It is a love that has no limits, no bounds, and nothing in this world can separate me from it.
Help me, Father, to embody the love that you have shown me in my relationships with others.
Your Word instructs me to love deeply, for love covers over a multitude of sins.
Grant me the grace to be patient, gentle, and humble, to bear with one another in love.
I long to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace, knowing that it is your love that binds us all together in perfect unity.
Lord, may your love shine through me, allowing me to be a vessel of your grace and compassion.
I pray for the ability to love as you love, unconditionally and without reservation.
Thank you for being my Shepherd, for your unfailing love, and for the wisdom and grace to love others deeply.
In Jesus’ name, I pray.
Amen.
Originally published at http://4foldlove.wordpress.com on October 30, 2023.
