Four Days
There's four days left until we kill our God.
In reality, we kill him every day. We kill him with our inattention, our callousness, our self interest instead of regard for others. We kill him in small ways with our indifference to the sufferings of those around us. We kill him with our indifference to the sufferings of those in much worse circumstances than ourselves, far away, in places with funny names and weird weather.
We, as a result of the Fall, spend every day trying to kill the spark, to drown out the promise of the Divine, to bury it under our misuse of all the gifts of our world. We take the food we eat, the drink we are given, and consume to excess, letting scraps rot while others starve. We buy the cheapest clothes, made by slave labor in far away places, made by environmentally unfriendly practices by those with no regard for the future. We pursue our illusions of power and money and status as if they were real, creating conditions where the only options are to transgress or perish. Then we punish those who transgress. We raise up that which is worthless, and degrade that which has value. Virtue is trampled, sin is extolled.
We crush ourselves in trying to get ahead. We crush that which is within us, breaking it down, until that spark is a distant glimmer, almost out.
Then, we formally kill our God. We kill a man only asks us to love one another, to give to the needy, to visit the prisoner, to feed the hungry. We are complicit.
We kill him, and with it our own contact with the Divine.
I don't know if you've ever killed anything larger than a bug. If you have, you know what I speak about. The pain, the terror, the fear of the unknown, the refusal to give up, the struggle to survive, the slow or rapid extinguishing of the spark of life, leaving only dead, lifeless matter.
The difference is, three days after we commit this crime, three days after we kill this gentle man, He rises again. And he says the same thing. Love your neighbor. Love God. No retribution for our crime, only forgiveness.
Every day, we kill our God. We can't help it. It's part of the price of this existence.
Every day, the Divine rises again, and reconnects with us. Regardless of the deeds we've done and the crimes we've committed, we are enveloped with Divine Love and Forgiveness.
In the midst of this darkness, this inability to cease killing through act, word, struggling in our own circumstance to survive: there is hope. There is Light, there is Love. There is the love of God, there is the love of our friends, our family, our companions. There is effort to do good, even if we cannot do it all the time. To alleviate suffering. To help those around us, to help those far away.
We are blessed. We are cursed. We are good, we are evil. In the center of it all, that spark burns. Make that spark into a fire. Fan those flames. Do something better than usual.
It's coming. Four days.
In reality, we kill him every day. We kill him with our inattention, our callousness, our self interest instead of regard for others. We kill him in small ways with our indifference to the sufferings of those around us. We kill him with our indifference to the sufferings of those in much worse circumstances than ourselves, far away, in places with funny names and weird weather.
We, as a result of the Fall, spend every day trying to kill the spark, to drown out the promise of the Divine, to bury it under our misuse of all the gifts of our world. We take the food we eat, the drink we are given, and consume to excess, letting scraps rot while others starve. We buy the cheapest clothes, made by slave labor in far away places, made by environmentally unfriendly practices by those with no regard for the future. We pursue our illusions of power and money and status as if they were real, creating conditions where the only options are to transgress or perish. Then we punish those who transgress. We raise up that which is worthless, and degrade that which has value. Virtue is trampled, sin is extolled.
We crush ourselves in trying to get ahead. We crush that which is within us, breaking it down, until that spark is a distant glimmer, almost out.
Then, we formally kill our God. We kill a man only asks us to love one another, to give to the needy, to visit the prisoner, to feed the hungry. We are complicit.
We kill him, and with it our own contact with the Divine.
I don't know if you've ever killed anything larger than a bug. If you have, you know what I speak about. The pain, the terror, the fear of the unknown, the refusal to give up, the struggle to survive, the slow or rapid extinguishing of the spark of life, leaving only dead, lifeless matter.
The difference is, three days after we commit this crime, three days after we kill this gentle man, He rises again. And he says the same thing. Love your neighbor. Love God. No retribution for our crime, only forgiveness.
Every day, we kill our God. We can't help it. It's part of the price of this existence.
Every day, the Divine rises again, and reconnects with us. Regardless of the deeds we've done and the crimes we've committed, we are enveloped with Divine Love and Forgiveness.
In the midst of this darkness, this inability to cease killing through act, word, struggling in our own circumstance to survive: there is hope. There is Light, there is Love. There is the love of God, there is the love of our friends, our family, our companions. There is effort to do good, even if we cannot do it all the time. To alleviate suffering. To help those around us, to help those far away.
We are blessed. We are cursed. We are good, we are evil. In the center of it all, that spark burns. Make that spark into a fire. Fan those flames. Do something better than usual.
It's coming. Four days.
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