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Be The Light This Day
Yesterday, in desperation at another killing of us humans without reason, I asked a friend, “What am I doing here?” In other words, why am I on this planet with so much sorrow and grief? I don’t want to be here, but I am. So, if I am here, what am I doing here?
Everywhere I look there are families torn about by violent death and deep grief that does not go away. I feel helpless, frustrated, stymied.
And so, as always, the God of all love points in a direction to search it out. Thank you for bringing that reality today for us.
In John 17, Jesus has a long conversation with Abba God, speaking about the Glory of God, coming through himself, and then into and through those given to him from the world (us) by Abba God. The following is from the Inclusive Bible v 4-10:
“I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. Now, Abba, glorify me with your own glory, the glory I had with you before the world began. I have manifested your name to those you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me; and now they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you’ve entrusted to me does indeed come from you. I entrusted to them the message you entrusted to me, and they received it. They know that I really came from you; they believe it was you who sent me. And it’s for them that I pray – not for the world, but for those you’ve given me – for they are really yours, just as all that belongs to me is yours and all that belongs to you is mine. It is in them that I have been glorified.”
Because the disciples now know, and believe that the Holy Spirit will teach them more, they are whole. The Glory of God is able to shine through them. That is the answer to “What am I doing here?” Ilia Delio shows us how wholeness, shining through, and expansion is part of our evolution.
“Wholeness is the integrated field of energy whereby all bodies are joined together by a luminous thread of love” (The Emergent Christ p.131). As we expand with the universe, our light grows brighter, reaches further; think…expanding Incarnation.
Rainer Maria Rilke repeats this idea of God’s glory shining through us:
“Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich thick nectars rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.”
(excerpted from “The Buddha in Glory” in The Emergent Christ, p 131).
May the Glory of God, Love, shine through all of us, today. “Do what you must but love the person next to you. Love is your salvation, not your possession.” (March 27, 2022 homily)
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
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