Brian’s Reflection: The Weekend, Sat, October 3, 2009

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray,
and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of
your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving
us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits
and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

- The Collect for Sunday, October 4


What interests me is this: We human beings have had the sense to imagine a God who is helpful, supportive, generous, caring, just, compassionate, “always more ready to hear that we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve” (I’m a little prickly about that last part about “deserve”; I think we human beings “deserve” all we can get in order for our lives to blossom in the best possible way!) - and then we shoot ourselves in the foot by ignoring this God! Do we have some kind of self-hate complex, that we believe one thing and act contrary to it?

The point is: we know what we need! Basically, Unconditional Love. In Jesus, we have a Friend, who mirrors in human form the loveliness of this Unconditional Love we have imagined – but we then so easily begin to think that God is against us, that God is looking for opportunities to demean and diminish us. This is just silly. It is a projection of the deep sense of unworthiness that lurks in our “conscience”.

Hold fast to the original image of the God of Unconditional Love, and to the image of our humanity as deserving and beautiful and utterly capable of Goodness!

You will be content, and the World will slowly be reshaped and healed.

Brian+