With judgments or gentleness … how did I act?
What’s wrong with this picture?
Though I am very much a glass-half-full sort of person, sometimes I do get the urge to call out, “Hey God, is all this pain and foolishness really necessary? How about taking another look and making some adjustments to the system?” Sigh.
But I recently ran across this passage from St. Catherine of Siena which made me stop, then quietly roll the words around in my mind …
I talk about it sometimes with Him, all the suffering in the world.
“Dear God,” I have prayed, “how is it possible all the horrors I have seen, all the atrocities you allow man to commit when you … God … are ever standing so near and could help us? Could we not hear your voice say ‘No’ with such love and power never again would we harm?”
And my Lord replied, “Who would understand if I said that I cannot bear to confine a wing, and not let it learn from the course it chooses.”
“But what of a man walking lost in a forest weeping and calling your name for help, and unknown to him he is heading for a covered pit with sharp spears in it that will maim his flesh when he crashes through the trap?”
“Yes, why don’t I remove every object from this world that could cause someone to weep? Yes, why don’t I speak in a way that could save a life?
I opened up my mouth and the Infinite ran to the edges of space … and all possibilities are contained therein, all possibilities, even sorrow.
In the end, nothing that ever caused one pain will exist, No one will begrudge Me.
The Absolute Innocence of all within my Creation takes a while to understand.”
St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
Small pieces of printed paper. Just a handy way for folks to exchange the necessities of life. I, for one, really appreciate not having to cart 5 chickens to the corner gas station every time I need a fill-up.
But there is more to these colored papers than meets the eye. They seem bewitched … imbued with surprising energy and the power to drive us bonkers.
How can this be?
The fur-pulling, screeching cat fight that is our political season is now in full force. The energy expended in acrimony, time and dollars would be laughable if it weren’t so sad.
“… one nation, under God, indivisible …”
What part of these 5 words don’t our politicians understand?
I love summer. Check that. I’m IN LOVE with summer. Positively pixilated. The overwhelming generosity of the season makes me giddy. Fat, juicy leaves in 179 shades of green … gazillions and bajillions of them. Corn … bushel baskets, silos, boxcars full of it. More black-eyed susans, more heat, more butterflies, more sun, more bird song, more lightning, more peaches, more sweat, more potato bugs than I can wrap my mind around. Nature models for me an open-handed generosity that I can strive, but only fail, to emulate. Sigh.
I’ve been wondering about the folks at BP … the decision makers … the ones whose eyes lit up at the prospect of millions and billions in profit. The ones who embraced greed. Do any of them now wake up at 4 in the morning … that hour of the black dogs, when all the energy in the room is dark and merciless? Do they stare wide eyed into that darkness and feel an awful interior emptiness?
From that question I began noodling around with the problem of how to illustrate sin. Not a particular sin, but the essence of sin. Yes. I know that these days the word sin isn’t fashionable. Quaint. Almost embarrassing. But I like its no-nonsense energy.
One way I look at it … sin is that which holds us separate from God’s energy.
On one hand we have technology … so chic, so sexy, so today … with the power to unlock riches we could imagine only in our dreams.
On the other hand we have Creation … so old, so stubborn, so unforgiving … with the power to sustain us eternally.
How can we balance these two energies?
In physics, the law of the conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed … it can only be transformed from one state to another.
This is one cool law. A law I’m excited to observe. Just imagine the possibilities …
Lewis Hyde connects art-making with gift-giving … when art is shared in a performance or gallery, the creative spirit itself is transferred to the recipient … and becomes a force for community building.
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