LOVE or LIKE- do you know the difference ? —I doubt many do. At Catholic masses yesterday, around the word, the Gospel reading was from Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus, seemingly, makes some crazy, unrealistic, statements—that is to those who don’t understand. Even my priest admitted that he had pondered and struggled with that reading all week. I truly wanted to stand up and explain to him that if he would/could define ‘love’, he would have no quandary—of course, I wouldn’t/ shouldn’t/didn’t do that. As a consequence, I suspect few if any gleaned a meaningful understanding from the reading or the homily.
In that reading, Jesus tells his listeners that they must ‘love’ their enemies—turn the other cheek if someone strikes you on the cheek—do good to those who hate you. What does all that mean? Are we supposed to lay down and let our enemies (those who hate us) roll over us like a steam roller—are we not allowed to defend ourselves, and if we do are we breaking God’s law? I think, without doubt, none of the above.
In order to understand what Jesus was/is saying, we must first understand what love is. That word love is co commonly misused as to almost have no recognizable meaning. It does, however, have eternal meaning which is derived from the epitome of love—God’s Perfect Love as manifested in this instance through the willing sacrificial death of Jesus. Simply stated love is acceptance. Jesus is calling us to accept our neighbor as a child of God who is loved by God just as we are. God/Jesus knows that each of us is a very imperfect being whose innate drives and understandings are based or our individual and collective life’s experiences. As a consequence, we develop attitudes obtuse to our neighbor even to the point of feeling it our right to be the aggressor and take someone’s life—even entire nations against other nations in war.
So how does that fit with Matthew’s Gospel reading? Very simply, Jesus is telling us we can never wish eternal evil on anyone or anything, because all are from the same creator. That does not mean that we have to like anyone or anything. The word like means to experience ‘sensual pleasure from’—see, feel, taste, smell, hear. It is entirely likely that at any given moment there are millions of people who don’t like each other—we get no sensual pleasure from them. However, we must never wish eternal evil on them. The Muslim terrorists who want to kill us are not liked at all by us, but they are children of God and must be accepted as such—that is Jesus message. Jesus never said we couldn’t kill an assailant if necessary to protect our selves and families, but in doing so, we must do with respect and acceptance.
That very concept of ‘love’ is what is so desperately missing in the universal philosophies of religion. If we could ever come to realize that God loves each of us equally, peace could be possible. But, as long as religion continues to spew the concept of a vengeful God, who is capable of showing more favor to some than others, there is absolutely no possibility of voluntary peace. We are taught that the more we go to church, or the more money we give to the church etc., the better God likes us, because we give him more sensual pleasure—therefore we get a ‘higher place’ in heaven. If that is not not tantamount to selling indulgences, I’ll eat my hat. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that a person who never darkens a church door, or a person who even denies the existence of God is loved by God equal to all others.
This vengeful, favor-seeking concept of God dreamed up by the Jews and perpetuated by Christianity has fostered a hostel attitude among people from day one.
Therefore, once again, I am pleading for the recognition and acceptance of the World-wide Communion of Spirituality—the understanding that all things are of God and in God. Only then can peace be achieved. Please read my little books Wilderness Cry, Peace in Spirituality, and Provocative Catholic. All are available from Amazon, Kindle, and from me (handg@comcast.net).
906242_Press Release for Wilderness Cry
Press Release for Peace in Spirituality
SPIRITUALITY- Just what is spirituality? Likely, if you were to ask that question of a thousand people, you’d get a thousand different answers—all would be vague. Two years ago, on this very site, I called for the understanding and acceptance of The World-wide Communion of Spirituality—my call continues. About six months ago, Covenant Books released the second of by books titled Peace in Spirituality. This book represents just one of a myriad of natural extensions of my philosophy of the essence of God’s nature as outlined in my first book, Wilderness Cry.
What a startling revelation—they all existed in eternity just as God.
TIME: this word indicates a very simple but necessary concept in order for us to understand and deal with the change that takes place in our universe on a continuing and continual basis. In other words, time is a measurement of change. As intelligent beings, we not only recognized change but we perceived the need to calibrate the rate of change so as to be able to arrange suitable schedules of our activities. All sorts of designations of measurement have been developed since humans occupied this earth. Even the Egyptians fourteen thousand years ago calculated that it takes roughly 26,000 years for each of the twelve Zodiac characters to rotate off the horizon.
Having made those observations causes many of us to ask a very fundamental question—where did all that come from? Did it just happen or, possibly, did some unseen Higher Power account for it all? The ‘miniscule’ picture of such a ‘possible creator’ as painted in the Bible becomes almost a laughing matter when one considers the magnitude of the task. Simple observation of the gross universe shows it to be constantly changing. However, its ‘building blocks’ are each prefect and unchanging. So where does that leave us?
The obvious question then is why do we each have a different God? The answer is very simple—no one has ever defined the essence of that God, and certainly without an essential definition, no one has a realistic clue about who or what that God entails.
I believe it was the famous Greek philosopher, Socrates, who, being continually annoyed by such jargonistic speech, counselled his acolytes to “question everything”. The hoity-toity Greeks didn’t want to be ‘questioned’—so they killed him. What he meant was, ‘if one cannot define his/her terms, they likely are meaningless. Do not waste your time engaging in meaningless talk’.