Abba,
Abba!
Why are Your people such recidivistic jerks? I really can’t talk with anyone else about this because I know that You made all of us, and it’s important for me to affirm at every turn that there must be some good left in each person because You made us Good. You made us and pronounced us Good!
Your first mistake was in making us! LOL! That’s just a joke. I know that Your act of Creating is an expression of Your immeasurable Love. So You created; You couldn’t help Yourself; it’s what You do. And then You proclaimed us Good. What? We have the potential to turn away from You and dare to do what You say is not good for us, and will in fact, (eventually) bring about death — not only our own death, mind you, but the death of the entire universe. Now Lord, how is that Good? How is this design of choice Good? Wouldn’t it be more true to call it neutral? We can choose good or evil, life or death, love or apathy, the good old binary view of morality and existence.
In my heart of hearts, I know that while You gave us the power to make choices, and that many of our choices seem to be able to be described in binary terms, that the real Reality, the Truth of You, is that there really is One Reality, One Truth, One God, One Life, and everything that You’ve created is designed to express some dimension of Your Mysterious One-ness. But we, we people who You saw fit to create in Your Image, are, unlike You, finite; we can never see the whole picture, try as we might. So we settle for descriptions of this versus that, dichotomies. Dichotomies have their limited usefulness, but IMHO are ultimately distractions from Truth.
Okay, okay, I know, I’m going down too many tangents. Back to my complaint: Why? Why did you make us with this capacity for choosing the absence or negation of Good and yet proclaim us Good? Because GOODNESS requires consciously and deliberately choosing it. Goodness, as we humans experience it, is better understood as a verb.
And yet we long to rest in a permanent Good. And that is You. There is no permanent Good other than Life-in-You- Lord-God-Creator-of-all.
Lord, Abba, the reason I’m ranting about all of this today is because I’m thinking about all that’s wrong with the world. I’m also reminded of people who have hurt me or trespassed on my goodness. Clearly, throughout human history, we can find many examples of individuals and whole groups of people making vile choices, choices that result in evil, and choices that in and of themselves are evil. And, less clearly, yet I believe true, is the fact that every human being that ever lived, if they lived long enough to have the agency to make deliberate and conscious choices, has ultimately made some choices that were NOT Good. Some people will call some of those choices sins, some will call them mistakes, some will call them weaknesses or addictions, and some will call them not even real choices but reactions to others’ bad choices. Whatever we call the actions that most of us will recognize as not life-giving, and whatever gradation/ absoluteness of evil we assign to these behaviors, it’s clear that a significant part of human behavior is destructive, not sustainable, not life-giving, not respectful of the humanity of others, not respectful of life on earth.
So, thinking of this war that Putin has launched upon Ukraine… What is he thinking? What does he think he can gain by choosing this evil destruction of human life, of a nation, of a culture, of civility as a global citizen? From my vantage point, I see him as similar to other antichrists: Hitler, Napoleon, Nero; I’m sure there are others. He has no chance of “winning” in any terms. While he destroys others, he’s destroying himself and whatever good he might have created along the way as a leader of his country.
What happens to a person’s soul when they persist in making such totally evil choices? Is there any light left within their spirit? Is Your Breath still in their being? Is there anything left of a sacred person that can yet be redeemed? If the fire of Your Love could purge all the evil from Putin’s heart, mind, soul, would there be anything left of Putin?
I still think there must be. As much as part of me doesn’t really want to come to this conclusion, because it would be so much easier to condemn and write off those who behave badly, I have to believe that there is no room for me to conclude there is nothing left of the sacred person You created in a human behaving badly. And I guess that’s why evil is evil: because Your Goodness, actually designed into us, is always available to us; we could at any point choose to turn away from evil and instead choose Life.
But Lord! The range of evil seems so horrendous, so abominable! And yet the “range” of Goodness is unlimited. Goodness is both absolute and infinitely varied. Because You invite us to participate in the Holy Creativity of doing Good.
Lord, when I am tempted to be burdened by the anger I feel towards others’ bad behavior, help me to remember that a) I really don’t need to carry most of that, and b) the little bit that might be for me process, I can do so with You. I never need to carry any of these heavy burdens alone. Jesus, Emmanuel, my Lord and my God, let me rest in You. And whatever good work You invite me to do, give me the grace to do so in and through Your Spirit Who lives in me and in Whom I live and move and have my being.
Lord, I pray for all who are suffering today. I pray especially for those who are dying. May they seek and find peace in You. And may my choices contribute toward Your blessings for all.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Praying Abba 