Saturday, June 18, 2011

More ranting?

This is the last few hours of my aloneness time. I have eaten when hungry, watched birds in the backyard, water the plants, helped secure cucumber vines to the fence, read, run once, walked, talked on the phone, researched houseplants and Cassville MO, loved on the herd and just kinda had the opportunity to practice 'being'. It's been good but I'm ready for Preacher man to come home. So today I will clean the house and pick him up this evening. I have tuna steaks thawing for him to grill when he comes home.
I finished The Spiritual Life by Evelyn Underhill this morning, and I'm pretty sure I will be going back to it often. She quotes St. Augustine, "God is the only Reality, and we are only real in so far as we are in His order and He in us." So that's pretty deep huh? This brings to mind good and evil, which is black and white. Now there are some folks out there that would like us to believe in the lovely shade of gray, but I don't believe God works in the gray. He's pretty straight forward about sin, all sin equals death! You don't just sorta kill or sorta steal. You either do it or you don't. 
The secular world loves to ask questions like "Why does a loving God let things like tornados kill people?" This is the problem of evil. There isn't any use in not talking about it! Christian spirituality does not explain evil and suffering, which remains a mystery beyond the reach of the human mind, but does show us how to deal with them. The world as we know it does not look like the work of the loving Father whom the Gospels call us to worship; but rather like the work of selfish and undisciplined children who have been given wonderful material and a measure of freedom, and not used that freedom well. (p.124) But we do see some that get it, that want to redeem the world from greed, cruelty, injustice and selfish desires. These people will find themselves strengthened by a spiritual power which enhances life and purifies character. This is God in us, working it out. We have to account for the existence of gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice, holiness and love. I don't believe this is stuff we came up with. We came up with eating from the one tree God said don't touch! So the 'why' comes down to God given freedom to choose and we chose wrong. So the answer to why does a loving God let tornados kill people is, because we chose evil over good. They were our parents after all.    
I hope this makes since and if it doesn't get the book and read it!

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