Category: God

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On the Paradoxical Connection Between Love, Law, and Joy

In the Gospel today (Thursday of the 5th Week of Easter), Jesus cuts right through the modern Western tendency to set law in opposition to both love and joy. He joins all three concepts and summons us to a new attitude.

Jesus says, As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.

To remain, to habitually abide in God’s love, has this effect: we keep the commandments. Love and law are connected as cause and effect. This is not our usual thinking. The best that Western culture will admit of law is that it is a necessary evil. While this is the best assessment of it, the more routine assessment is that law is somehow an unloving imposition by the powerful on the weak, the hierarchy on the laity, the (evil, oppressive, Pharisaical—you fill in the adjective) Church on decent people. Law is something that restrains, not something through which we experience love or joy.

Whereas the modern world disconnects law from love, Jesus links them. Jesus says that we both experience love and show it by keeping the commandments. The keeping of the commandments is the fruit of love! Jesus sets forth a vision whereby we, having experienced God’s love, desire and rejoice in His commands.

As we love God, we begin to love what and whom He loves. We love justice and mercy, generosity, chastity, and truth. We love our neighbor and even our enemy. We do this as the fruit of love. Having experienced God’s love, we see our hearts change; our desires and priorities become more like God’s and less like those of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Our obedience and joyful adherence to His commands comes from remaining or abiding in God’s love. It also points back to it, because our obedience is an act of love for the Lord.

The “loving” God, according to the world, has few or no rules; He affirms, encourages, accepts, and includes—or so goes the thinking. The real Jesus, however, is far more complex. He is surely loving, especially of sinners. He encourages; He includes the outcast; but He also speaks of sin and rebukes it. He embraces the sinner but directs him to “Sin no more.” He sets forth a demanding moral vision, even as He shows mercy. In this Gospel, Jesus joins love and the law, and then adds that the law brings joy!

Of this, I am a witness. God’s law gives joy to my heart. As a priest, I live as a celibate (like Jesus) and my life is very fulfilling. I have been faithful to my celibate commitment without fail. I have not strayed from proper boundaries. I stay away from pornography. I am not in any way sexually active with women or anyone else. In all this I do not feel “repressed.” I am not sad or lonely. In fact, my life is joyful. I am fulfilled and see my celibacy as a gift.

To those who cannot marry, whether because they are too young, have not met the right person, or have same-sex attraction, I say that God can and still does bless you. Living celibately is fulfilling and joyful for those who are temporarily and/or permanently called to it.

The Church cannot and will not affirm or call good what God calls sin, whether it is greed, violence, illicit heterosexual acts, or (more controversially) homosexual acts. In so doing we are not any more unloving, repressed, or sad than Jesus is—and He is none of these things. Neither can we affirm any other acts or attitudes that the Bible calls sinful. These things are all taught in love and they bring joy to those who will accept them.

The Lord is no liar and He promises that love, joy, and His commandments are all interrelated. I am a witness that this is true.

The law is an expression of God’s love, not some terrible imposition. If we have been loved by God, we will keep his law by that very love. Our obedience itself is love, not grudging fear. And oh, the joy of living in God’s truth and experiencing the effects of His love as we see sins put to death and our very desires increasingly transformed!

Beware of those who would say that a loving God doesn’t mind what we do. Of course He does! He knows what sin does to us and how it harms us and others. Therefore, in His love, He commands. If we know His love and remain in it, we will keep the commandments joyfully, because we want to, not merely because we have to.

Law, love, and joy are connected. We ought not to separate what God has joined. We will hear more about this in Sunday’s Gospel.

Consider this song as directed to God, and see that His love changes everything:

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On the Passing of All Things, As Seen in a Commercial

Blog-11-20The clip below is of a commercial that must have taken weeks to film. And regardless of the intent of the commercial (selling insurance), there is something of an admonition, in both the video and the music, that life and the things of life slip away.

While the music sets forth the theme, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here,” the objects in the house start to get up and leave the house and its owners. The owners themselves begin to be swept away as well. By the end, all that was within, and all who were within, are swept outside.

This is a paradigm for life. No thing and no person in this world will survive the passage of time. All will be swept away; all will pass. Even lofty mountains were once on the sea floor, and to that floor they will eventually erode and return. Jesus said in last week’s Gospel: Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away (Mat 24:35).

Scripture also says,

For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come (Heb 13:14).
The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray (1 Peter 4:7).
But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).

This commercial is not morbid. Rather, it is almost joyful. For indeed, though earthly glories fade, Scripture says (in many different passages) that trouble doesn’t last always (cf Psalm 30:6).

The commercial ends with a photograph being taken. Ultimately, each moment in life is but a snapshot in time. Time itself and all things are moving downstream and slipping away. God alone remains forever. Our only hope is to be anchored to Him. He is our rock, our firm foundation. His Kingdom is our lasting city. All else fails and slips away.

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What is the Wrath of God? A Study of a Common Biblical Theme

In Tuesday’s reading at daily Mass (Tuesday of the 28th Week) there was a reference to the wrath of God: The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). St. Paul goes on to set forth a host of social ills that result from the suppression of the truth, including the approval of homosexual acts, as evidence of a darkened intellect and debased mind (Rom 1:28).

But what is God’s wrath? It is spoken of often in Scripture and is a subject we must treat carefully. On the one hand we cannot simply dismiss the concept as contradictory to the fact that God is love, but neither can we deny God’s wrath as unfit in terms of His love.

It seems worthwhile to consider some aspects of the very complicated reality of the wrath of God. There is not enough space to cover the whole topic in this post, but the comment section will stay open, as always, for your continued additions and subtractions. What are some ways that we can explain and understand the wrath of God? Let me propose a few.

The wrath of God is not merely an Old Testament concept. It is mentioned quite frequently in the New Testament as well. For example, consider the following New Testament passages:

  1. Jesus said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36).
  2. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness (Rom 1:18).
  3. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord (Rom 12:19).
  4. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things [e.g., sexual immorality] God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient (Eph 5:6).
  5. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess 5:9).
  6. The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath (Rev 14:19).

There are at least a dozen other New Testament texts I cite, but allow these to suffice. So it is clear that the “wrath of God” is not some ancient or primitive concept with which the New Testament has dispensed. And notice, too, that the wrath of God is not something reserved simply for the end of the world. It is also spoken of as something already operative in certain people.

So again, what is God’s wrath and how can we reconcile it with His love?  Consider some of the following images or explanations of God’s wrath. None of them alone explains it, but considered together, an overall understanding may emerge.

  1. Image: God’s wrath is His passion to set things right. We see this image of God’s wrath right at the beginning in Genesis, when God cursed Satan and uttered the protoevangelium (the first good news): I will make you and the woman enemies … one of her seed will crush your head while you strike at his heel” (Genesis 3:15). God is clearly angered at what sin has done to Adam and Eve and continues to have anger whenever He beholds sin and injustice. He has a passion for our holiness. God wants what is best for us. He is angered by what hinders us. Surely all sins provoke His wrath, but there are five that especially cry out to Heaven: willful murder (Gen. 4:10); the sin of the Sodomites (Gen. 18:20; 19:13); the cry of the people oppressed (Ex. 3:7-10); the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan (Ex. 20:20-22); and injustice to the wage earner (Deut. 24:14-5; Jas. 5:4) (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1867). In terms of sin, injustice, and anything that hinders the possibility of salvation, God has a wrathful indignation and a passion to set things right. This is part of His love for us. God’s wrath may be manifested through punishment, by disturbing our conscience, or simply by allowing us to experience the consequences of our sin and injustice.
  2. Clarification: God’s wrath is not like our anger. In saying that God is angry we ought to be careful to understand that however God experiences anger (or any passion), it is not tainted by sin. God is not angry the way we are. When we get angry we often experience an out-of-control quality; our temper flares and we often say and do things that are excessive, if not sinful. It cannot pertain to God to have temper tantrums or to “fly off the handle,” to combine anger with an unreasonable lashing out. The way God experiences anger is not something we can fully understand but it is surely a sovereign and serene act of His will, not an out-of-control emotion.
  3. Clarification: God is not moody. God does not have good days and bad days, good moods and bad ones. Scripture seems clear enough on this subject when it indicates that God does not change. Consider this from the Book of James: Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning (James 1:17). The fact that God shows wrath does not mean that He has suddenly had enough or that His temper has flared, or that His mood has soured. God is. He does not change. As Scripture says, He is not variable. And this leads us to the next image.
  4. Image: The primary location of God’s wrath is not within God; it is in us. Perhaps the best definition I have heard of God’s wrath is this: God’s wrath is our experience of the total incompatibility of our sinful state before the Holiness of God. Sin and God’s holiness just don’t mix. They can’t keep company. Consider fire and water. They do not mix; they cannot coexist in the same spot. Bring them together and you can hear the conflict. Think of water spilled on a hot stove; hear the sizzling and popping; see the steam rising as the water flees away. If, on the other hand, there is a lot of water, the fire is overwhelmed and extinguished. But the point is that they cannot coexist. They will conflict and one will win. This is wrath: the complete incompatibility of two things. It is this way between sin and God’s utter holiness. We must be purified before we can enter the presence of God otherwise we could never tolerate His glory. We would wail and grind our teeth and turn away in horror. The wrath is the conflict between our sin and God’s holiness. God cannot and will not change, so we must be changed, otherwise we experience wrath. But notice that the experience is in us primarily and not in God; He does not change. He is holy and serene; He is love. If we experience His wrath, it is on account of us, not Him. Consider the next image.
  5. Image: It is we who change, not God, and this causes wrath to be experienced or not. Consider the following example. On the ceiling of my bedroom is a light with a 100-watt light bulb. At night before bed, I delight in the light; I am accustomed to it. But then at bedtime I turn off the light and go to sleep. When I wake up it is still dark (at least in the winter), so I turn on the light. Ugh! Grrr! Now the light is too bright and I curse it! Now, mind you, the light has not changed one bit. It is still the same 100-watt bulb it was hours earlier. The light is the same; it is I who have changed. But do you know what I do? I blame the light and say, “That light is too harsh!” But the light is not harsh; it is just the same as it was when I was happy with it. Because I have changed I experience its wrath, but the wrath is really in me. Consider the experience of the ancient family of man with God. Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening when the dew collected on the grass (cf Gen 3:8). They had a warm friendship with Him and did not fear His presence. After sinning, they hid. Had God changed? He had not, but they had, and they now experienced him very differently. Fast forward to another theophany. God had come to Mt. Sinai. As He descended, the people were terrified, for there were peals of thunder, flashes of lightning, clouds, and the loud blast of a trumpet. The people told Moses, “You speak to us, but let not God speak, else we will die!” (Ex 20:19) God, too, warned Moses that the people could not get too close lest His wrath be vented upon them (Ex 19:20-25). Now, again, had God changed? No, he had not. He was the same God who walked with them in the cool of the evening in a most intimate way. It was we who had changed. We had lost the holiness without which no one can see the Lord (Heb 12:14). The same God, unchanged though He was, now seemed frightening and wrathful.
  6. What, then, shall we do? If we can allow the image of fire to remain before us we may well find a hopeful sign in God’s providence. Since God is a holy fire, a consuming fire (cf Heb 12:26; Is 33:14), how can we possibly come into His presence? How can we avoid the wrath that would destroy us? Well, what is the only thing that survives in the presence of fire? Fire itself! So it looks as if we’d better become fire if we want to see God. And thus it was that God sent tongues of fire upon the Apostles and upon us at our Confirmation. God wants to set you and me on fire with the Holy Spirit and in holiness. God wants to bring us up to the temperature of glory so that we can stand in His presence.See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.  But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years (Mal 3:1-4). And indeed Jesus has now come: For you have turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath (1 Thess 1:10-11).

So there is a “wrath of God.” As I have tried to show, it is more in us than it is in God. But I will not say to you that there is no wrath in God. Scripture is clear in indicating that wrath does pertain to God’s inner life. What exactly it is and how God experiences it is mysterious to us. We can say to some extent what it is not (as we did above), but we cannot really say what it is exactly. But far richer is the meditation that the wrath of God is essentially within us. It is our experience of the incompatibility of sin before God. We must be washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb and purified. Most of us will need purification in Purgatory, too. But if we let the Lord perform His saving work, we are saved from His wrath, for we are made holy and set on fire with God’s love. And fire never fears the presence of fire. God is love, but He will not change. So it is that love must change us.

One of the greatest cinematic depictions of the wrath of God occurred in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Nazis sinfully think they can open the Ark of the Covenant and endure the presence of God. What they get is wrath, for sin cannot endure the reality of God’s presence. “Enjoy” this clip:

 

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Love, It’s What God Does – As Seen in a Commercial

blog10-9I’ve been enjoying the Geico “It’s what you do” commercials (in the less than one hour of television I watch each day). They remind me of a sort of syllogism I’ve used to explain why God’s loves us: God is love. When love is what you are, love is what you do. Therefore, God loves.

Why does God love us? Because God is love and that is what love does: it loves.

God does not love us because we are good or we deserve it; He loves because he is love.

Enjoy these “It’s what you do” commercials. They illustrate an old truth, agere sequitur esse (action follows being; what one does follows from what one is).

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His Wrath is Not Turned Back, His Hand is Still Outstretched! Pondering the Wrath of God as a Work of Revelation

blog.8.24When reading Scripture that mentions the wrath of God, most think of His wrath in human terms. But we must be clear that God does not get angry the way we do. Further, our God is not moody: pleasant and patient one moment and then angry and punishing the next. No, God does not suffer from mood swings or throw tantrums. God is love; stably, serenely, and consistently so.

So then what is God’s wrath? I have written on this topic in greater depth here: What is the Wrath of God? However for this post, allow me to summarize by saying that God’s wrath is His “passion” to set things right. His wrath is His work to root out sin and injustice and bring forth holiness and righteousness.

Another thing to note about God’s wrath is that the anger is really more in us than in God. The wrath of God is our experience of the total incompatibility of our unrepentant sin before the holiness of God. It is like fire and water: they do not mix. And one can hear the wrathful conflict when fire and water come together. So the sinner in the presence of the all holy God is going to experience a conflict. It is not so much that God is angry as that the sinner is incapable of enduring His glory, so bright and awesome. It is like wax before the fire.

In this post I would like explore how God’s wrath is also a work of revelation. St. Paul says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). And so St. Paul speaks of God’s wrath as being revealed, as being a work of revelation. As such, it exposes our injustice, error, and sin.

A recent text we read in the Liturgy of the Hours (from Isaiah Ch. 9) also develops God’s wrath as a kind of light of revelation, as a hand pointing out our iniquity. Within the longer passage below there is this refrain: For all this, his wrath is not turned back, and his hand is still outstretched! For indeed, God’s wrath casts a light on our wrongs and his outstretched hand points to them, revealing them and executing their results. Let’s consider Isaiah’s treatment of the revelatory wrath of God.

The Lord has sent word against Jacob,
it falls upon Israel;
And all the people know it,
Ephraim and those who dwell in Samaria,
those who say in arrogance and pride of heart,
“Bricks have fallen,
but we will build with cut stone;
Sycamores are felled,
but we will replace them with cedars.”
But the Lord raises up their foes against them
and stirs up their enemies to action:
Aram on the east and the Philistines on the west
devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this, his wrath is not turned back,
and his hand is still outstretched! (Is 9:8-12)

And thus we see that the wrath of God reveals in Israel a bold, prideful resistance to His warnings. “Bricks have fallen … [and] sycamores have been felled.” These were warnings from God that neither natural nor man-made structures can stand; they crumble under the weight of sin and injustice. Yet instead of heeding the warning, the people doubled-down on their sins, arrogantly thinking that they could replace what God had established with designs of their own.

For us today a similar pattern is evident, as our families crumble and we twist nature. But even seeing the darkness and deep confusion we have ushered in, we still do not seek God’s light again. Rather, our culture “doubles down” and arrogantly asserts that we can redefine marriage, family, sexuality, and even the nature of things themselves. We sweep aside the “bricks and sycamores” that God has established, thinking that we can do better with the stone and cedars of our imagining.

Having instructed Israel through His law and warned her to no avail, God handed Israel over to her enemies, just as today we are being handed over to the enemies of our rebellion: STDs, depopulation, divorce, cohabitation, sexual confusion of a colossal nature, the tragic loss of our children through abortion, the decline of our children (lack of discipline, lack of proper psychological formation) due to broken families—the list could go on and on.

When the text says that God “handed them over,” it means that He let them have their own way and allowed them to suffer the consequences. As would any loving father, God seeks first to teach and warn His children. Next, He resorts to punishments that seek to draw us back from the full impact of our sin. But if all these fail, He finally hands us over to our own designs.

When we experience wrath, we experience the total incompatibility of our sinful stance with the glory for which we were made. There comes on us, collectively and individually, a burning indignation toward God and any who represent Him or remind us of the truth for which we were made. We project our anger on God. But God is not angry. Rather, He has a passion, a will to set things right. His justice and love are one reality.

How is the wrath of God a work of revelation? It shows us the full consequences of our sinful rejection of God and His plan for us. The fact is, we grow weak and become easy prey for our enemies, both literal and figurative. For Ancient Israel this meant Aram and the Philistines. For us in the decaying, once-Christian West it means we become too weak to resist enemies like lust and greed. We can no longer make commitments and keep them; we have little self-control. These enemies devour our strength, cloud our minds, and erode our progress.

This wrathful condition is a revelation from God, showing us what we are when we reject His favor, His mercy, and His call to truth. As a work of revelation, there is always the hoped-for response: repentance. But, sadly, the text continues in this way:

The people do not turn to him who struck them,
nor seek the Lord of hosts.

And so the wrath continues, revealing to us in ever-deeper and darker tones the full depths of our condition, of our sad state. Sin grows; the young especially suffer from the sins of parents and elders. If we do not want grace, we will not have it; if we do not seek His mercy and grace, we will be increasingly without them. We cannot endure God’s holiness and justice apart from grace and mercy, and so we experience His holiness as wrath. This reveals to us our grave condition.

Time does not permit further commentary on the text below (from Isaiah). But as you read it, is there not a sobering sense that what is described is all too familiar? Is not this wrathful recitation a revelation?

The leaders of this people mislead them
and those to be led are engulfed.
For this reason, the Lord does not spare their young men,
and their orphans and widows he does not pity;
They are wholly profaned and sinful,
and every mouth gives vent to folly.
For all this, his wrath is not turned back,
his hand is still outstretched!

For wickedness burns like fire,
devouring brier and thorn;
It kindles the forest thickets,
which go up in columns of smoke.
At the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land quakes,
and the people are like fuel for fire;
No man spares his brother,
each devours the flesh of his neighbor.
Though they hack on the right, they are hungry;
though they eat on the left, they are not filled.
Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh;
together they turn on Judah.
For all this, his wrath is not turned back,
his hand is still outstretched!

Woe to those who enact unjust statutes
and who write oppressive decrees,
Depriving the needy of judgment
and robbing my people’s poor of their rights,
Making widows their plunder,
and orphans their prey!
What will you do on the day of punishment,
when ruin comes from afar?
To whom will you flee for help?
Where will you leave your wealth,
Lest it sink beneath the captive
or fall beneath the slain?
For all this, his wrath is not turned back,
his hand is still outstretched!

Yes, as the text asks, what will we do on the day of full judgment? Even when we are in our worst state, God allows His wrath (our experience of His holy justice) to be a revelation to us, in the hope that before our final judgment we will finally call on Him. For on that day, the door of possible change will close and our condition will be final and forever fixed.

Woe to us that God’s wrath must be our revelation, his wrath is not turned back, his hand is still outstretched. Better for us to repent and allow His beautiful truth and mercy to be our light, our revelation. Have mercy on us, Lord. Give us added graces to repent!

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Is It Natural to Desire God?

Are You Smarter than a Fifth-Grader?

Archdiocese of Washington: Year of Faith series

Written by:

Dominican Brothers of the Province of St. Joseph

To outsiders, religious people can seem like entirely different kinds of people – a bit strange sometimes, fanatics to some, archaic at times, and a bit superstitious.

This is all to say that, to some people, religious beliefs are thought to work like emotions.  That is, sometimes you get sad, and sometimes you don’t.  Some days you feel this way, and some days you feel that way.  Some people are happy, and others aren’t.  They conclude: some people believe in God – this god or that god – and others don’t.  There are all sorts of opinions and all sorts of people.

However, the answer to today’s “Are You Smarter than a Fifth-Grader?” question clarifies the true nature of the desire that human beings have for God.

The reality is that all human beings have a natural desire for God.  The desire in our hearts for God does not come from any mere or passing conversation we might have with our friends, nor does this desire for God well up in our hearts principally from an inspiring book we’ve just read, or from a movie.  The desire that human beings can and do have for God is not like an emotion – it’s not a fleeting sensibility that some have and others don’t.  The desire for God is written into our very nature as human beings.  Every single person has it.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say: “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for”(CCC 27).

If we are honest with ourselves, we recognize that there is a hunger for the Truth deep in our hearts.  It is not just in some of us; it is deep in the heart of every human being.  It is our desire for the infinite, the perfect, and for Love itself.  We desire to experience the fullness to which we are called, but this fullness can only be fulfilled in God.

The Second Vatican Council said it this way: “The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.” (Gaudium et Spes, no. 19)

Love allows us to reach from the confines of our own limitations and connects us to its very source, who is God Himself.

Saint Augustine said it best: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord.”

Join us on November 29th for our next “Are You Smarter than a Fifth-Grader?” post.

Please don’t forget to follow our questions on the Archdiocese of Washington Facebook page.

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Our God Sits High, Yet Looks Low! A Meditation on the Fact that We are Nearly Invisible From Space.

There is a rather humorous aspect of the story of the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis. You likely know the basic story which begins with the men of that early time saying, Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves (Gen 11:4). It was an image of pride, of grandiosity. The humor comes, that when the tower is built, the great tower, with its top reaching to the heavens, the truth is, it is actually so puny that God has to come down from heaven to see it. The text says, And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built (Gen 11:5).

Now, of course, as omniscient, God clearly sees everything, and the humor in the text is not some primitive notion of God. Rather the humor is for our benefit. For in effect it says that our greatest, tallest, most prominent and glorious work that we saw as reaching heaven itself, is in fact so puny that God has to stoop to “see” it. He has to descend to get a glimpse of it. What ultimately DOES alarm God is how colossal our pride is, and he has to humble us, by confusing our language and scattering us about the planet.

I recalled this story as I viewed the video below. It is wonderful footage of earth, taken from the Space Shuttle. There is verbal commentary and explanation by one of the astronauts, explaining some of the features we are seeing, and where on the globe we are looking as the pictures pass by. The view is remarkable. But what is more remarkable is what we do NOT see: us!

It is an astonishing thing that, even though the shuttle is passing over well populated areas, there is no visual evidence that we even exist. No cities or buildings are visible, no planes streaking through the skies, even large scale agricultural features seem lacking. There is only one mention of a color difference across the Great Salt Lake, due to a railroad bridge preventing lake circulation. But the bridge is in no way visible, only its effect.

We think of ourselves as so big, so impressive. And yet even in low earth orbit, we cannot be seen. It is true, at night, our cities light the view, but during the day – next to nothing says we are here. Even the magnified picture on my 30″ iMac screen shows no evidence of us below.

And having viewed the video I think of Psalm 8:

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens….When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? Yet, You made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Yes, we are so powerful (by God’s gift), and yet so tiny as to be nearly invisible from a short distance into space. Our mighty buildings rise. But they rise on a speck of space dust called earth, revolving around a fiery point of light, called the sun. Yet our huge sun is but one point of light in the Milky Way Galaxy of over 100 Billion Stars. And the Milky Way Galaxy, so huge to us as to be incomprehensible, is but one Galaxy of an estimated 200 Billion Galaxies.

What is man O Lord that you are mindful of him? Jesus says of us: And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered (Matt 10:30). Yes, God who knows the numbers of the stars and calls them by name also knows the number of the hairs on each of our heads. Nothing escapes him.

And old preacher’s saying goes: “We serve a God who sits high, yet looks low!” Indeed, never forget how tiny you and I are, yet never cease to marvel that God knit you together in your mother’s womb and sustains every fiber of your being. We cannot even be seen from low earth orbit, but God who sees all, looks into our very heart. Do not cease to marvel that, though tiny, you and I are wonderfully, fearfully made (Psalm 139), and that He has put all things under our feet.

Photo: Frerieke at Creative Commons

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On the Dignity of Dogs and Glory of God

God gives many gifts, and one of the great gifts he has given me was the gift of our family dogs.

Scripture says little about dogs and when it does it is never flattering. Most of the references make one think of wild dogs who ran in packs. Psalm 22:16 says, “Many dogs have surrounded me, a pack of evildoers closes in upon me. Or again from Philippians 3:2, Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers. No, strangely, I cannot find one Scripture that speaks well of dogs.

And yet, they have been a great gift to me. Such loyalty, such unconditional “love.” There were times in my life when everyone was disgusted with me, even I was disgusted with me. But even on days like that my dog would still run to great me, and curl up next to me; such wonderful, “forgiving” and uncomplicated creatures.

And they have much to teach us. Likely you have seen this list, but it is always worth another read. It’s things: can learn from dogs:

  1. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.
  2. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
  3. When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
  4. Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.
  5. Take naps and stretch before rising.
  6. Run, romp, and play daily.
  7. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.
  8. Be loyal.
  9. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
  10. When someone is having a bad day, be silent,  sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
  11. Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
  12. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
  13. When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
  14. No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout…. run right back and make friends
  15. Delight in the simple joys of a long walk.

All simple but profound lessons, proclaimed without words, and lived with a simple integrity. Yes, dogs are very special.

Prince, our eighty pound Dalmatian was the dog of my youth. (See Picture, upper right). He had the energy and strength of a horse and commanded quite a presence in our back yard as he laid down the law with squirrels and other possible intruders. He loved to go for car rides, and when we took him for a walk, it was really he who walked us, so powerful was his gait. He also ran five miles a day with my father.

A remarkable thing about Prince was that he could smile. When we would return home, he’d run to the door, furiously waging his tail and with the cheeks of his muzzle pulled back and his head shaking back and forth. People who saw it for the first time couldn’t believe it, he was actually smiling. It seems to be a unique gift of some Dalmatians and Collies.

Prince was also quite a dreamer. He’d lay on the floor near the sofa and doze off to sleep. Soon enough his legs started moving, and he’d start huffing and even barking as he dreamed. No doubt he was in a great chase.

In his last two years he began a decline and gave me my first close lesson of age and death. Gradually, the majestic dog grew crippled and struggled to walk. I learned to give him aspirin, and  that helped him for a while. But there came the days when his walking grew rare and then his kidneys failed. We knew we had to let him go.

My Father was a gifted poet (if I do say so myself), and some of his finest works were composed at the death of our dogs. It was his way of grieving their loss. Here is what he wrote of Prince as he recalled their long runs together and the sad moment when Prince had to be put down:

We were solitary, old friend, you and I.
In the sun and rain we tramped together
And walked and ran the miles;
A hundred phantoms caught you
In scent and sound;
You raced to ancient summonses
That led the pack across the wild
In joyful bound:
You tried to tell me.
I listened, but could only hear
Your barking in the wind,
And see the eager paws
Trace out your gladness in the ground.

When I returned from being gone,
You greeted me with the abandon of your kind,
In leaps and yelps and wags,
Telling me you loved me
And not knowing why,
Yet knowing that I loved you, too,
And had missed you,
Even as I do now
That death’s deep slumberings
Have had their toll,
Since I held you in my arms,
And you looked at me
And said goodbye. (Charles Evans Pope, 1982)

Next came Missy, a stray who adopted us. She had been abused, and so had a timidity that was endearing even as it was troubling. She loved to look out the window of our house, and would loudly announce to any passing dogs that she worked here and that they should get on along. She too, loved car rides and to romp for hours in the yard or in the nearby field. She was a tender little dog who felt trauma when we left the house, and joy when we returned. She loved to snuggle close and really stole my parents hearts. Of her my father wrote at her death:

I thought that I saw you,
But you were gone, dear;
The yard was empty then,
The brown of your fur lost
on the green of May.
In memory’s shade
You snuggle next to me,
My little love, again. (Charles Evans Pope, 1998)

Finally there was Molly, a border collie and a dog who perfectly illustrated that happiness is an inside job. She seemed content with what ever happened. She even seemed happy when she went to the kennel to stay as my parents travelled. She was happy to go, and happy to come home. My father said that her motto was “Whatever happens, is just great for Molly.” She was just always happy, full of energy and never gave a day of trouble; the perfect dog for my parents in their old age. She outlived them both and died about a year after my father passed.

Even in death she was charmed. She had been diagnosed with liver cancer. But she never showed any pain. The day she died, she had romped about in the yard and came in to sleep in her own little bed. She died while she napped. Of her my Father wrote:

Molly Jingles,
Scamper pup,
You are down,
You are up;

Racing round
In jumps and traces
Hiding bones
In secret places,

You have really
Struck a nerve,
Chewing up
The house with verve,

You are clever
You’re a bounder,
But our very
Favorite hounder. (Charles Evans Pope, 2000)

Thank you Lord, for the gift of our pets, those special animals designated by you to be our close companions. Thank you for the gifts of Prince, and Missy and Molly. In recent years you’ve given me my cats too: Tupac, Gracie-Girl, Ellen Bayne, Jerry McGuire, Benedict, and now Jenny- June and Daniel. I don’t know if animals can love, Lord, but I sure do feel your love through them and I thank you and praise you for the quiet, simple lessons you have taught me through them. May you be praised O Lord.

The pictures in this post are my own.

Here’s a wonderful video of a very smart and helpful Jack Russell Terrier: