Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, November 24, 2010

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent
and omnipotent God would have designedly
created parasitic wasps with the express intention
of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.

Charles Darwin. On this date, 1859, “On the Origin
of Species” was published


I don’t have much to say. Darwin makes obvious sense, at least to me and my intuitive experience of God. No God Who is called Love would “organize” Nature in this way. I think of Evolution like any emanation of Life: it will develop as it is directed by the demands of Life ….. and never will Divine Love be absent from it, regardless of what happens. If there is any prime message in the Gospel, it is this: “God” does not manipulate; “God” always lifts up Life. There is no development of Life that can evade God’s Blessing and Presence.

This is the Eve of Thanksgiving. What, in the “old days” in the monastic life, we would have called (if there had been such a feast; and perhaps the Feast of Corpus Christi or perhaps even Maundy Thursday and the Feast of the Institution of the Holy Eucharist” would qualify) “First Vespers of the Solemnity of Thanksgiving”.

Life blossoms and changes as Life requires, as the human community opts for fullness and abundance in Charity and Love.

I have experienced it in my Life, as I hope you have.

Give Thanks!

Brian+

p.s. Darwin also said:

At some future period, not very distant as
measured by centuries, the civilized races
of man will almost certainly exterminate,
and replace the savage races throughout the world.


I understand this to mean that, all human beings being capable of Evil, we will evolve. That we will learn to choose Good over Evil. May we be able to give Thanks for this in our own day!

Brian+