Goodness and Senseless Acts

Waking up on a beautiful June morning to hear about another senseless act of violence started me thinking about goodness....that allusive quality that is one of the fruits of the spirit, a kernel of it contained inside us, protect that kernel, cultivate it so that it is not distorted and used for the exact opposite.

God gave us a present, a soul, a tiny sliver of himself, that is part of our journey toward our spiritual reunion with Him. So often that little part of ourselves is ignored. Why? Is it so hard to find, lost in the tangled maze of life?  Is it easier to choose a different path? Are we so easily led astray by worldly beliefs?  We so often despair that as individuals we can do little to "right" the wrongs of this world. But if each of us, individually lived with "all" our soul than wouldn't life fit together a little easier.

God calls us to love. Hate is not love, killing people is not love, making people suffer is not love. God knows his stuff! He knows what it takes to survive life here in the human domain. He gave us the directions to put together a meaningful, fulfilling life. Please pray for Orlando, Paris, Aurora, Belgium, (I won't continue as you get the point). Pray to whatever higher spirit you seek. Pray if you don't even believe. (I mean seriously it can't hurt, right?)

Hugs to each and everyone who reads this post. May the goodness of the gift God has given you shine forth in this world of darkness. May His hope bring hope into your life, piece by piece, bit by bit, we can make a difference.

Violence, Hate and God's Promises

I watched CNN most of the afternoon yesterday. I know it's not really a healthy thing to do. Yet another mass shooting unfolding just mere days after the last one couldn't simply be ignored. We cannot hide our heads in the sand. Paris, Mali, Colorado and now California. Has the whole world gone mad?

Things are troubling in today's world. This emptiness inside of people grows. We can talk gun control, mental health and terrorism all we want but the plain hard fact is that none of those truly tell the whole story.  They are but simple human terms to try to describe something that we struggle to understand. It reminds me of an earlier post about the nature of good and evil. While good strives to "become" to move higher and higher in a spiritual swirl toward God, evil is the emptiness of the soul, a lack of meaning, the "unbecoming" until only the darkness exists.

We can enact laws, we can limit guns, we can increase mental health availability, we can bomb terrorist strongholds but none of those truly combat the emptiness. I'm a Methodist, but I'm pretty eclectic, the God or higher spirit that you chose to worship does not have to fit into my belief system but it has to exist. And it has to exist in harmony with others beliefs.  This isn't a competition between my God and your God. Without the existence of God, The Great Spirit, there is only the darkness. I agree with the headline that reads  "God isn't fixing this"

I'll be honest....I didn't read the article but I stand behind the headline. Here's why. God does promise to make something good out of the storms that devastate your life but that assumes you are going to be an active participant. You can't be passive, you can't ignore God and good and love and then assume that God is stepping in to clean up your mess. Not going to happen!

Cleaning up the mess doesn't require pointing fingers, endless debates and rhetoric. It requires two things. One that we live our lives filled with love rather than hate. Two that we recognize the emptiness created by a lack of some kind of faith in God or a higher being. When we recognize number two then we are open to achieve number one.

By now, most of you are shaking your heads saying..."it's not gonna happen." and you could very well be right. But without an end to hate in this world, there will be no end to violence. Truly moving in that direction would allow God to create something great out of the storms.

To simply pray for God to "fix" this is not what's required. Oh I'm all for prayer and it's powerful but we need to move past conversations with God and onto the path he has set forth for us in regard to living our spiritual lives. Now more than ever we must offer others the gift of a deep spiritual connection to God. For in the end, the whole world may be destroyed and even the stars may fall but God will fulfill his promises.

 

 

Hugs to each of you during these very trying times. May you reflect on words of love and seek ways to bring others into faith so they are not consumed by emptiness.