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In the divine economy of grace, sin and failure become the base metal and raw material for the redemption experience itself. Much of organized religion, however, tends to be peopled by folks who have a mania for some ideal order—which is never the case—so they are seldom happy or content. Religion is for the sake of divine union, not social order, yet the powers that be always want to use it for maintaining social order. This pollutes much of religion's goal and purpose.
In fact, it makes you anal retentive after awhile, to use Freud’s rude phrase, because you can never be happy with life as it is, which is always filled with handicapped people, mentally unstable people, people of other and so-called false religions, irritable people, gay people, and people of totally different customs and traditions. Not to speak of wild nature, which we have not loved very well up to now. Organized religion has not been known for its inclusiveness or for being very comfortable with diversity. Yet pluriformity, multiplicity, and diversity are representative of the only world there is! It is rather amazing that we can miss, deny, or ignore what is in plain sight everywhere.
Salvation is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in fact salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor. That is how transformative divine love is.
Adapted from
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, p. 60
The Daily Meditations for 2013 are now available
in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, And . . . .
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