“I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
I read today’s lectionary and honestly, Old Testament God is just way too vengeful for me. I need to write this out a little.
After a fervent bout of attending Mass before first grade at the Catholic school I attended, I wandered away from God. No one else in my family seemed to care very much about Him, except for my Irish grandmother, and she seemed pained by their relationship. (I later understood that to be shame, because she had had a son back in Ireland out of wedlock and was sent to the US as a punishment and married a man who was a violent abuser of their son, my father.)
By the time I was 10, I’d experienced enough bad stuff (sin??) for me to figure out that God’s job wasn’t to protect me from harm or suffering. I prayed but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. I didn’t blame him or anything, I just figured He had better things to do, or was busy in another corner of the universe. By the time I was in my early twenties,I moved towards philosophy and God was more of an intellectual construct. Why did we feel the need for God? What is the nature of our relationship with God?
What I do remember from praying as a child, and what I have experienced as an adult is grace. And I mean GRACE-capital letters- a feeling of pure love and compassion. One time I was driving down the road full fear and anxiety- it was a particularly difficult spell, and I was literally so struck with love I had to pull over. So I believe in that because I’ve experienced it. Yet there seems to be a Christian ideology that grace cannot exist without sin, which seems weird to me. Why not pure love? Can love not exist without sin? I think I have a problem with the notion of sin, or particularly Christian sin, which I think is created by people, not by God, so that’s a topic for another day.
I am rambling, so back to the question at hand.
A great nation is made up of people. To be compassionate in our day to day lives. To have respect for differing opinions, cultures, and ideas. To care for one another, so that no one is hungry or unsafe. To be willing to sacrifice something of value or importance in order to ease a stranger’s suffering. To trust.
Sometimes I wonder whether we are becoming more and more incapable of sacrifice. Maybe it's capitalism (SIN??)- which I wonder is the antithesis of love. Our job is to help each other weather the inevitability of suffering. That is what makes a great nation, a great tribe. Not the lack of sin, but the desire for love.
— Cristine
I read today’s lectionary and honestly, Old Testament God is just way too vengeful for me. I need to write this out a little.
After a fervent bout of attending Mass before first grade at the Catholic school I attended, I wandered away from God. No one else in my family seemed to care very much about Him, except for my Irish grandmother, and she seemed pained by their relationship. (I later understood that to be shame, because she had had a son back in Ireland out of wedlock and was sent to the US as a punishment and married a man who was a violent abuser of their son, my father.)
By the time I was 10, I’d experienced enough bad stuff (sin??) for me to figure out that God’s job wasn’t to protect me from harm or suffering. I prayed but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. I didn’t blame him or anything, I just figured He had better things to do, or was busy in another corner of the universe. By the time I was in my early twenties,I moved towards philosophy and God was more of an intellectual construct. Why did we feel the need for God? What is the nature of our relationship with God?
What I do remember from praying as a child, and what I have experienced as an adult is grace. And I mean GRACE-capital letters- a feeling of pure love and compassion. One time I was driving down the road full fear and anxiety- it was a particularly difficult spell, and I was literally so struck with love I had to pull over. So I believe in that because I’ve experienced it. Yet there seems to be a Christian ideology that grace cannot exist without sin, which seems weird to me. Why not pure love? Can love not exist without sin? I think I have a problem with the notion of sin, or particularly Christian sin, which I think is created by people, not by God, so that’s a topic for another day.
I am rambling, so back to the question at hand.
A great nation is made up of people. To be compassionate in our day to day lives. To have respect for differing opinions, cultures, and ideas. To care for one another, so that no one is hungry or unsafe. To be willing to sacrifice something of value or importance in order to ease a stranger’s suffering. To trust.
Sometimes I wonder whether we are becoming more and more incapable of sacrifice. Maybe it's capitalism (SIN??)- which I wonder is the antithesis of love. Our job is to help each other weather the inevitability of suffering. That is what makes a great nation, a great tribe. Not the lack of sin, but the desire for love.
— Cristine
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