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Where Does God Being Love Leave Us? (And Get Back Here, Atheists!)

Where Does God Being Love Leave Us? (And Get Back Here, Atheists!)

Last updated on: September 16, 2008 at 9:26 am by John Shore

Where Does God Being Love Leave Us? (And Get Back Here, Atheists!) 2008-09-16T09:26:32-08:00 John Shore

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“God is Love.”

Great! It’s the richest philosophical/religious proposition possible.

What it means to us Christians, though, is that (what with our being made in God’s image, and all) we, too, are supposed to be All Love All the Time.

Not so great. Instant fail.

Because who can be about love all the time? Life is hard—and when it’s hard, it’s either frightening or angering, either of which tends to cancel out love like a famished shark cancels out Charlie the Thermometer Tuna. People behave like animals. They doink you just because it’s the easiest thing for them to do. Your boss wouldn’t know a good idea from a python around his neck. Your coworkers seem to think “cooperate” means “shirk and blame.” Driving home from work at night is like being stuck playing “Let’s Make a Squeal!” Lying morons trash the economy. Nonsense wars are started by men and women who wouldn’t know a battlefield from a tennis court.

Point being: bad stuff happens all the time. And when it happens to us, the immediacy of that emotional impact is less likely to leave us filled with love than it is filled with thoughts that make Satan giggle and snort.

Not so good. Common, but not so good.

And things critical to the human experience that aren’t good need to be made better. That’s the Rule of Life.

So we need to figure out the nature of all that stands between us and our conscious, daily experiencing of God’s direct, unqualified love. If we can grasp What’s Hindering Us, then we can squeeze the life out of it.

Cool. We can do that. Understanding something just means thinking about it until you do. We can think. God didn’t give us brains just so our heads wouldn’t sag in. We’re supposed to use our Giant Brains to enhance our understanding of Him. (Atheists! You can do this, too! It doesn’t have to be the Christian God you’re trying to more richly and consistently experience. It can be … The Goodness of the Universe! You can try to buff up your Cosmic Integration! Graduate to the next level of Karmic Fulfillment! Become more harmonious! Whatever you call it, or however you conceive of it, you, just like we Christians, have no choice—you’re actually morally obliged—to try and become the best person you can vis-a-vis that particular version of The Big Picture to which you subscribe.)

God (or The Force, or whatever you might happen to call it) is always fully present in our heart and mind. But too often something or other interferes with our fully apprehending that most glorious truth of all.

I think it’s time we got busy thinking about what some of that Enemy of Us stuff is—of what exactly that troublesome “something or other” is made: how it works, where it comes from, how it can be made to go back to where it came from.

And chalking up all Bad Things to Satan doesn’t get it, by the way. Blaming Satan for what you can fix is like blaming Ronald McDonald for your high cholesterol. Ronald McDonald doesn’t control what you eat. He’s just a front man, a shrill shill of a pill filled with ill will. (Sorry. Bad timing on the rhyming.) Satan can point you toward what works against you—but he can’t make you partake of it. That’s where you have to kick in.

Anyway, I’d like to start writing on the relationship between Us and that which stands between Us and God.

I’d like to actually write a book on that. And I’d like to do it right here, everyday, one post at a time.

Then, when it’s done, I could make the whole thing available on Amazon as an e-book for about seven bucks.

I like it! Using your blog to serially write a book!

Shades of Mr. Dickens!

Except it wouldn’t work, since it would so quickly leave behind those who haven’t beeen reading the posts all along.

Shoot.

Well. We’ll see.

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