H,
I am surprised about how I struggle
to adapt to the equality of God’s love. He is at once so intimate and so vast
that they seem to contradict. It may seem a question of size at first. He is
all sufficient so He can be intimate and vast at the same time. He can talk to
all of us like He is addressing one person and all feel special and all feel
loved. This is a good interpretation and it fits. We are all special but we are
many and He fills the universe so the human heart is just another excursion.
This is not how I mean it,
though. It is fine to know everybody but it is not so fine, to the human heart,
to treat everyone the same way. The only determining factor in how close you
get seems to be your own choice. We need only look at the criminal next to
Jesus who was in paradise after a life of raising the opposite, I guess. We only
need to look at Saul/Paul who is helping kill apostles one second and is reprimanding
hallowed St. Peter for acting unlike Christ the next. We see time and time
again that God turns for anybody, loves anybody and will visit anyone who
invites Him. He is not picking favourites.
This disturbs us more than
we think it does. We just have to find ourselves in the position of the
non-prodigal son to discover it. We are so used to earning things and
competition that we have invented things like chandeliers in heavenly houses
because we cannot see a world where the robber on the cross and the blessed St.
John the beloved get the same treatment at the pearly gates.
And can we dig a little
closer? In our everyday living when we pray to get that job or win that
concession are we not saying that one thing be picked over the other? He may
tell us that it is His kingdom that matters and His will that should stand but
we are more interested in how that will works out for us. Triumph and defeat
are all in relation to some other person getting or not getting. The idea that
we can all grow together is fine as long as you are not that odd friend that is
left behind.
I have not cracked it all
yet and I may not till we see Him face to face but it seems to be that the equality of God’s
love challenges us to die to the ambitions of our own hearts so that winning or
losing are not real states. They are just the way we perceive events but all
will be swallowed up in glory. It may all be speculation but it seems to be
that to love others as we love our own self is not a call to look down on
anyone as a charity case or up at anyone, save Christ, as a role model but
sideways in equality at our very own brothers and sisters in every sense of
that word. He is as equal towards us as we should be toward one another.
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