The God who kindles a spark

Before, we've looked at how the beatitudes reveal God as the one who blesses, and as the one who sees our need: the one who acts in compassion.

The beatitudes also show him as the God who kindles a spark. He sees humility, or mercy, or a peacemaker, or a pure heart, and he blesses them. He makes us hunger and thirst for righteousness. He encourages those things within us. What he starts in us is a flame, a dim reflection of him. He rebuilds the image of himself within us. The beatitudes create that desire within us to become that living embodiment of a divine spark. "The smoldering wick he will not snuff out"; instead he coaxes that ember back to life. If the image of God was originally put into us by the Word of God, then he again uses the Word of God to renew that image inside us. That is what we find happening when we read the beatitudes.

The Word of God is so much more than information for intellectual study. Rightly handled, it is transformative, planting the seed of the new creation, creating the image of God in us. That is the true work of a Bible study, or private reading, or a sermon. If the Word of God is the agent of creation, then the Word of God can be expected again as part of our renewal. The living word has in it the power of God to make us whole again. We find that at work in the passages that draw us to them.

Better Thanksgiving spiritual prep (the relatives)

For years I've been working to be better prepared for the annual Thanksgiving gathering in a family where the simmering tensions are a given. And the preparations have been helping, though again I'm hoping to take it one step further this year. This year I am taking the "do unto others" approach: where I wish other people would remember any decent or good thing I've ever done and treat me accordingly, I plan to remember a decent or good thing each person there has done, and try to find an opportunity to work that story into the conversation. So this year, I hope to uplift the people there with memories of how they:

• made really amazing pumpkin pies
• used to hem pants for my grandfather
• whenever the grandparents were in the hospital, used to cheer up youngest generation with balloon-games with the hospital gloves
• was a favorite substitute teacher
• earned "world's most patient" status during her husband's declining years
• danced along with the staff at Chuck E Cheese parties and made everybody smile (someone who is now old enough to appreciate that rather than be embarrassed by it)
• followed his own sense of direction in a career choice, rather than doing what was expected

We'll see how many of these I can work into the conversation this Thanksgiving. 

I'm also reviewing some of the holiday preparations from prior years:

• One thing I'm thankful for, about each person at the Thanksgiving dinner
• A Christian response to backhanded compliments
• A more pro-active approach on backhanded compliments
• Writing a scroll of remembrance for peoples' kindnesses to me
• Forgiveness struggles part 1 and part 2

Though when it comes to backhanded compliments, it seems that ultimately, if I'm expecting backhanded compliments, I should go armed with honest and earnest compliments about the others, or stories that build up the other people. It might set a better tone and prevent the insults, or (if not), still "bless those who curse you".

Seeing God ... and seeing anyone at all

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. - Jesus

The most beautiful of all blessings is reserved for the pure in heart: seeing God.

Here, among all the blessings that Jesus proclaims, is one blessing that I do not think could possibly be any other way. If we are small and self-centered, we don't even see the people around us, not really. If our lives are all about ourselves, then it's not just the words of God that we don't hear, but even the words of the person talking to us. "He who has ears, let him hear" could be a fair warning whenever anyone is talking to us. Whenever we are self-centered, we do not see our neighbor, we do not hear our own family, we do not notice the person sitting next to us. The beginning of a pure heart is to love our neighbor. The stronger we become in love, the more we are able to see what is around us -- to see who is around us. (There are ways in which love is blind, but hatred is much blinder. And indifference is nearly defined by willful blindness.)

As for seeing God: God's presence is all around us, but when we become impatient or frustrated we do not see it. It is in our quieter and kinder moments that we notice it. Even in this world, the pure in heart see more.

And in the world to come ...

The God Who Sees Our Need

Before we've looked at the Beatitudes and Jesus' message of the God who blesses. The Beatitudes are also Jesus' message of the God who sees our need. The beatitudes show God's focus on the downtrodden and burdened, on those who mourn, on those who hunger and thirst for righteousness -- on those distressed by the injustice of the world, on the persecuted. Luke's edition shows God's focus on the poor and hungry. Jesus does not begin his preaching with a message of God's commands. He does not begin with a message of our guilt or our need for reform. He begins with a message that God knows our sorrows, that he sees our affliction. He proclaims God's concern and God's love. More than that, he proclaims God's promise of restoration.

The basis underlying so much of Jesus' teaching is the coming kingdom of heaven. One parable after another seeks to capture the image for us, to explain some aspect of what the kingdom of heaven is like. But here in Matthew's gospel, Jesus is shown beginning his teaching ministry by explaining the kingdom of heaven in plainer words. He proclaims a new creation, and a world filled with the blessings of God, where injustice and hunger and mourning are a thing of the past. For here and now, we have Jesus' word that God knows what it is we endure.

Controversies in the Church: Is there a purgatory? (The dilemma of indulgences)

In this post, rather than directly tackling the question of purgatory, I'm instead exploring how it ties into the related practice of granting indulgences. Why would I approach purgatory from the side issue of indulgences? Because the questions in my mind show that there are some things about the doctrines that I simply don't understand. It seems best if I should try to find understanding with the questions that I already have, before moving forward with a next step. 

So "purgatory" (roughly speaking) is a place where, according to Roman Catholics, those who die in the Lord go to be purged from the stains of earthly sins. I have heard it explained as a penalty for sin or as a purification to cleanse the soul (or both). We'll come back to that in a moment, after we look at "indulgences". I should also mention: Purgatory is often portrayed as unpleasant or painful. 

And "indulgences" are the Roman Catholic church's grant of remission or pardon, including shortening the time in purgatory for the dearly departed. 

Here are the things that don't make sense to me, looking at those two doctrines side by side: 

If "purgatory" is necessary in order to cleanse the soul, then how can that time be shortened and still do the necessary job of purification? If someone were released from purgatory before being thoroughly cleansed, could they enter paradise? Or if the necessary job of cleansing the soul were complete, why were they still in purgatory? We might even ask, if they were still in purgatory after being cleansed, was it simply as punishment? And if they remained as punishment, then where is the forgiveness of sins? 

Or if someone were to say that purgatory is not painful or unpleasant -- then where is the benefit of indulgences at all? Why would we want early release, if purgatory were not painful? 

So to sum up: If we say the time in purgatory is endured out of necessity, then how can there be any change in the duration? Or if a change in duration is a mercy that can be done and still meet the need, then why is that mercy not always shown, since we've already agreed it meets the need? If we say that time in purgatory is not endured out of necessity, then why is it done at all? 

These are the questions in my mind about purgatory that are raised by the church's claim to grant indulgences. 

Halloween Special: The Befriended Monster

There's a problem with writing "monster movies": there aren't that many monsters left. It's not that we disbelieve them too much; there's always that "willing suspension of disbelief" that is the entry price for a good story, and we gladly give it. But at this point, we've befriended all the major monsters. Friendly ghosts? That's been done long since; Casper was ages ago, and Nearly-Headless Nick is just one of the more recent entries in the series. Friendly vampires? Twilight has enough of them to make a vampire soap opera. Friendly werewolves? Definitely, Twilight and Harry Potter again have the territory well-covered between Jacob Black, the Wolf pack, and Remus Lupin. The old Adams Family and Munsters were just an early act in a now-expected storyline. Wicked has a sympathetic retelling of the Wizard of Oz's Witch of the West. Even Godzilla isn't that bad, once you understand his motives. (Godzilla as an apocalyptic vengeance on man has some small similarities to the beasties of the Book of Revelation.)

So what do you do when you need a monstrous character? Well, humans have enough monstrous traits, and the other monsters were often projections of our worst selves. So storytellers generally turn to humans for their monsters. Many a story contains a "surprising" revelation that the monster is, after all, human. Environmentalists tend to write stories where humanity or industrialism or capitalism is the monster, or man is the disease that needs to be eradicated. People of a political bent tend to create caricatures of their political opponents and show them as monstrous. Or (based on J.K. Rowling's statements), people she has personally disliked over the years appear in Roman-a-clef format as distasteful characters such as Gilderoy Lockhart, or odious ones like Dolores Umbridge. (Honestly, Lord Voldemort has more a sympathetic backstory than the stand-ins for some people the author once knew.)

But what if -- what if we haven't taken "befriending the monster" quite far enough? What if the human monsters also could be understood? What if, once you understand where they're coming from, they're not quite as monstrous as we supposed? What if prejudice has blinded us, or a personal bad experience has tainted our thoughts? Why is it, again, we're so certain we shouldn't listen and seek understanding?

Once we listen to "the monster" and try to understand, the monster tends to become more human. And if we decide not to understand or listen ... well, it's easy to miss the scarier point of the "surprise" revelation that the monster is human: the monster might be us.

So here's to Halloween. It's the night where we pass out lots of candy to all the ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches, dragons -- and neighbors -- that we might see. And for that, it may well be my favorite holiday.

"It is impossible that God should produce a being like Himself"

"It is impossible that God should produce a being like Himself" - Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, Part III Chapter XV

When we talk about the question, "Is there anything that God cannot do?", sooner or later we come to the question: Are there things that are genuinely, absolutely impossible? For example, a thing cannot be both a triangle and a square; that is self-contradictory, and so it is impossible. If something is impossible, then even God cannot do it, and it is not considered any kind of shortcoming or limit to God. Instead, it is considered a property of reality: a thing is itself, and not something else.

Maimonides says it's "impossible" for God to produce a being like Himself. This is based on his assumptions about what it means to be God. But would a Christian share those assumptions? We'll leave aside, for the moment, any specific question of the identity of any other being or beings that might (or might not) be like God, and instead consider the hypothetical question: If it were possible, what it would mean?

So: Can God "produce" a being like Himself? God Himself has not been produced, so the very fact that the other being is "produced" would mean that this other being is, in some ways, not exactly like God. And the differences do not end there, differences that come simply from the fact of being produced rather than self-existing. In philosophy, God is sometimes spoken of as a Necessary Being, or as the Necessary Being. But for any being that God produced, that being would probably not be Necessary in the same way.

But imagine if God did produce a being like Himself in other respects. If God produced another being like God -- inasmuch as another can be like, while being produced, and not in the same way Necessary -- what would it mean for the concept of God, and what it means to be God? If He is no longer entirely alone, if He is now capable of fellowship and relationship -- then God has expanded what it means to be God. Has he altered the equation of the universe? Are fellowship and companionship now part of what it means to exist? Has he changed the foundation, whether the idea of Necessity has such a key place in our world and in our understanding of it, since he has done something so foundational that is so clearly not Necessary?

If God were to produce another being like Himself, and if the point is fellowship and love -- if the point is that it is not impossible to be like Him -- then that may alter what it means to exist in our universe, to be a part of our universe. It may also alter what it means to understand our universe.