Brian’s Reflection: Monday, Sept 28, 2009

God has been pleased to prescribe limits to his
power and to work out his ends within these limits.

-William S. Paley, head of CBS for over 50 years,
born on this date, 1901

And we human beings, who have invented God in the image we desire, grant “Him” ways to wiggle out of the Almightiness we somehow seem to want “Him” to have. We Episcopalians (and most other Christians) have countless prayers that begin “Almighty God”. Yet we order our lives to deal with the fact that God seems not to choose to wield that Almightiness. We seem to need to believe that God can do anything (S)he wishes, including reversing natural processes – so much so that we are willing to grant God the inscrutable wisdom to ignore human suffering and all manner of Evil, and to assume that there is some Plan, unknown to us but assumed benign in our ultimate favour, that will work Itself out to our benefit in some unknown future. We hold to this self-deception despite millennia of evidence to the contrary.

I have pondered this “mystery” for many decades now. I continue to be amazed at our capacity for making excuses for God. There must be some powerfully deep-rooted need that we are meeting. Alas, it seems not to include our willingness to assume responsibility for our own lives and to recognize the Christ-nature within us. My question is, Do we have some deep-rooted need to have some escape route for getting ourselves off the hook for the messes we make of our lives, or to grant God a pardon for not living up to our expectations of an “almighty god” who could in fact make our lives easier but chooses not to?

I think Mr. Paley is being kind and I think he is correct theologically. The limits within which God chooses to “work out his ends” is the complex humanity of each of us. Each human being is defined by the Christ-nature at our heart and core. In some that Christ-nature is vibrant, in some dim and weak. When it is strong, as within my friend Natalie who is facing her extensive cancer with a deep connection with the Christ-Within, "Might” is radiantly evident. For others, who are unable to tap into that Christ-Nature, Life goes awry.

In the Christian Myth, just as God chose to grant, in trust and submission, utter Freedom to Jesus to pursue His path, so God does with each of us, who are “heirs with Christ” of God’s gift of Life. Bottom line: we must choose our Path.

God’s “might” is shown in God’s servanthood to our Freedom. What greater love is there than this??

Brian+