Wednesday, June 22, 2022
There are Many Storms of Fire and Light
Comin’ Our Way
We Can Stop None of Them by
Keeping Anything or Being Anything.
Proverbs 7:2
Keep my commandments and live, keep my teachings as the apple of your eye.
James 3:13
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.
Words of Grace For Today
When religion is reduced to us doing the good things, then religion is nothing more than the rest of life, dressed up to be nice or good or respectable. We do this because we recognize that we certainly are not nice or good or respectable. We are good at one thing, and that is being sinners.
Religion that is used to tell other people that they ought to live nice or good or respectable lives is an often apparently successful project, which fails at anyone living nice or good or respectable. It just controls people and makes everyone hide the truth about their lives being anything but nice or good or respectable.
By all means, go for it: keep and be: keep God’s commandments as the apple of your eye. Be wise and understanding and show by your life that your works are born of wisdom. If you can. But nobody can Keep and Be!. That’s the honest bare truth about humans.
So why all this posturing as if telling others to be nice and good and respectable by being wise and understanding and keeping God’s commandments?
Yes, why? Why these marching orders to Keep and Be?
Because facing the fact that telling others how to be better is futile means having to face the fact that trying to be better oneself is also futile.
Yes, why admit that? That might lead to total despair which might drive us back to rely solely on God for anything good to come out of us or for anything worthwhile to come of us.
Then solely relying on God for everything good, we might just beg God for forgiveness and mercy and another chance at life and the wisdom to know how to let God be God and us to be humans.
God saw all that coming and sent the patriarchs and matriarchs (cannot leave them out) and the prophets and warrior-kings, and wise-kings, and then Jesus to show us how to live in creation as creatures full of gratitude for life itself, and for a model on how to share life with others, generously, prodigiously, extravagantly even!
Relying solely on God for anything and everything good, we might just start to keep the Law, love the Lord your God with all you heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbour as yourself, especially your enemy. And that might be the wisest thing we ever accomplish in life.
The source of keeping the Law and being wise is not that we decide to so keep or be. It is only in that we surrender any illusions we have that these things might be within our grasp by our volition. Instead they are gifts from God, flowing freely over us, available to us if we simply surrender to God’s good mercy and unconditional love for us and all people.
Keep and be: might be better now days if we would just keep bees.