“Nations.”

H,

There is this general and dangerous stroke used to paint everything with God.  It makes God petty, partisan, and political. They are actually none of these things. We see nations as countries, God sees nations as people. Each person, each individual is a nation by herself or himself.  The concern of the divine is that we are all aware and living out our worth in the most joyous way possible. Endless delight is what God is calling us to.

 

This does not mean the nation-state does not exist. Delusion is not a fruit of the spirit. We live within the context of countries with political boundaries and identities. These are real things we come up against in birth certificates, passports, civil rights, laws, and all the facets of our modern life as is presently constructed. We cannot deny this. The position we must take is that these things only serve to help or hinder the individual. The quest is still for the human soul. The idea is still to take every single human being as vital to the purposes and plans of God.

 

This is how we must look at policy, politics, and governance.  There are things that can help all of us grow: education, a sense of community, human rights, economic opportunity, justice, and a social safety net that is progressive and not retrogressive. There are also things that do not help at all: racism, ethnicism, unfair economic systems, lack of social services, lack of basic human freedoms and closed political systems. When we are to decide what is the best way to approach these flawed systems of present earth, we must look to systems that make all of us better nations within this context. They may not save the soul, but they make it more likely to look toward the light than the dark. They may not fulfil the heart but, even in their failure, they make us look for the eternity in everything.