I am in the third and last month of my sabbatical, and I have been busy. My priorities were to try to finish two books I have been working on for years but haven’t been able to finish – this full-time gig gets in the way of too many things! The first book is about to be sent to a publisher for perusal – it’s called “The Cancer of Fundamentalism.” Many of you know that I presented a program on this 10 years ago (it’s on YouTube) and have been throwing that phrase around since then. The second is tentatively titled “Stop Blaming God.” I’m looking at the concepts of God’s plan, Free Will, and Chaos, and how these three forces interact in our lives – you know, light stuff. My hope is to make a dent in the idea that everything happens because God makes it happen, a concept that has some Biblical foundation, but not enough to cancel out the other two forces. I am about halfway done with the first draft and should be finished soon.
Part of my problem with the idea that God is in total control is that this is a cruel theology. I don’t think anyone who believes in this thinks that it’s cruel; I know way too many good people who are in that camp to believe that any of them mean harm when they say things like, “God needed another angel.” If fact, I think they mean it as a comfort; what could be bad about God being in the driver’s seat? Thanks for asking. I am thinking about the family I sat with 30 years ago as they cradled their 6-month-old son in their arms after he had died of a rare disease. I’m thinking about the 30-year-old mother who left a husband and three children behind after a drunk driver T-boned her while she was on her way home from work. I’m thinking about the 64-year-old grandmother who fought cancer for three years and will never see her grandchildren grow up. Why would God “take them” from the people they love and the generous lives they were living? Telling them that this is all part of some grand plan that God put together before humanity existed is a level of cruelty that I can’t comprehend.
None of us gets out of life alive, so I am not saying that death is cruel. What I want to be heard is this: God does not set the time we die. God does not cause accidents. God does not create famines or keep people from conceiving babies or save one person while everyone else dies in a plane crash. Stop blaming God! If God does all of those things, then God is demonic, and the God I love is a God of love. Sh+t happens – chaos is real – people have free will – sometimes we suffer from our own mistakes and sins and sometimes we suffer because others do us wrong. That doesn’t mean we should stop praying or hoping or living; what it means is that we should take every day and greet it with joy! It means we should do today what we missed out on yesterday and can’t wait until tomorrow to finish. It may be a trite thing to say, but Carpe Diem people! Life is short and God is good. Make the best of every moment and make the world a better place. Because time does not stand still and neither should we. If God is love, we should live like it.
Prayer – Give us hope this day, God of this moment, so that our lives can be a blessing to the lives of those we meet. Amen.
Today’s art is “Seize the Day” by Cecilia Bell.