Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, October 26, 2011

God can make you anything you want to be,
but you have to put everything in his hands.

Mahalia Jackson. She was born on this date,
1911, in New Orleans


I had every album of hers! And I loved the picture of her, eyes closed, head raised, “in touch” with what she was singing. As a young Canadian adolescent, I had no first-hand knowledge of what she was singing about. But I knew it was hurt and power and sorrow and hope and faith ….. and after I came to live in the USA 45 years ago, then I “knew” it.

I agree with Mahalia. God can “make you anything you want to be”. But. You have to know Who and What “God” is. The little tin-pot tyrant, out there punishing and loving conditionally, claimed by various groups as “their” God who excludes others, with whom so many of us were raised? Nope. Not a chance. Serving that God, you will only be a narrow, ungenerous, limited, shriveled version of what it means to be human, by definition made in the Divine Image.

Once you discover the God of unconditional Love Who is co-terminus with you, the nucleus of every cell of which you are made, Who manifests that you are One with every other Being, core-defined by the Mystery of Compassion/Love ….. when you “put everything is his hands”, i.e., consent to be who you are in Reality ….. you know God. And you are whole, “saved”.

“God” never “makes” us do anything, be anything. God just waits to be recognized.

God is All. And we each are of the All.

Brian+