God Version 1.0 by Robin Mann

God Version 1.0

   I don't believe in a God up in the sky
   Who sits in heaven and never hears me cry.
   I don't believe in a God who's far away --
   I believe in Jesus living here with us today.

   I don't believe in a watchmaker above,
   Set this world going but now is not involved,
   Who from a distance is watching as we fall --
   I believe in Jesus' God who suffers with us all.

   I don't believe in a tyrant on a throne
   Who wants to punish us for every wrong we've done,
   Who keeps a tally of each mistake and crime --
   God wants to have mercy on us each and every time.

   I don't believe in a God who keeps a shop,
   Who checks each item and puts a price on top,
   Who wants dividend on each investment made --
   God is always giving and refuses to be paid.

   I don't believe in a patriarchal chief,
   A judge who never had mercy on a thief,
   The Lord and Master who must be waited on --
   God is mother-sister just as much as father-son.

   God is beside us, God has no other home,
   No other family, we are God's flesh and bone;
   He-she is with us and with all humankind --
   Loving Her creation always occupies Her mind.

    (Robin Mann, 1991.)

A light in the darkness

Always, our darkness contains a seed of light
that struggles to grow into brightness.
Evil so hungers for good that often
it will consume itself in its longing.
For light is the truth of all existence.
     - Joy Cowley

Our life has its seasons, and God has the reasons
why spring follows winter, and new leaves grow,
for there’s a connection with our resurrection
that flowers will bud after frost and snow,
so there’s never a time to stop believing,
there’s never a time for hope to die,
there’s never a time to stop loving,
these three things go on.
     - Shirley Murray

Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
(1 Corinthians 13:13)

I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour
and fragrance of a flower – the Light in my darkness,
the Voice in my silence.
     - Helen Keller

I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look
up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will
change for the better, that this cruelty too will end,
that peace and tranquillity will return once more.
     - Anne Frank

May the blessing of light be on us, light without and
light within.
     - Celtic

The name of God

what a struggle we have
with your name, God.
 
for some,
it's a dry and dusty word,
better suited
for the grave of history.
 
for others,
it is caught on the tip
of our tongues,
     and just can't seem
     to escape our lips.
 
for many,
it is more a word
we use in anger,
or frustration,
or pain.
 
take this crumbling,
cracking word,
renew it,
refresh it,
reshape it
into that Living Word
that reminds us
you are always with us
     as you have been before we could speak. 
Amen.
 
(c) 2004 Thom M. Shuman

The old man and the scorpion

There's a parable told about an old man who used to meditate each day be the Ganges River in India. 

One morning he saw a scorpion floating on the water. When the scorpion drifted near the old man he reached to rescue it but was stung by the scorpion. A bit later he tried again and was stung again, the bite swelling his hand painfully and giving him much pain. 

Another man passing by saw what was happening and yelled at the mediator, "Hey, stupid old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don't you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?" 

The old man calmly replied, "My friend, just because it is in the scorpion's nature to sting, does not change my nature to save." 

It is in God's nature to save (Luke 15:1-10)

Faith

May our faith be a little more wild,
and a little less guarded.

May we wonder a little more,
and fear a little less.

May we dip more than a toe
in the great sea of faith.

When we reach out to hold something,
may we find you already holding us.

When we stray into questions and doubt,
may we find you waiting with a new adventure.

When we find answers,
may we go back and look for the question.

May we have a faith that lifts stones,
rather than rakes the sand;
a faith that fidgets,
rather than behaves;
a faith that keeps stretching,
rather than becomes moribund.
a faith that stays up late,
rather than wanting early nights.

Help us discover the doing of faith
rather than its management;
exploring the outer edges,
rather than retreating to the centre;
making new words,
rather than wasting play-time defining the old ones.

May we live through faith,
for the Faith,

and God,
may we find you doing the same.

So be it
Amen

There’s a wideness in God's mercy

There’s a wideness in God's mercy
Like the wideness of the sea;
There's a kindness in God's justice
Which is more than liberty.

There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

But we make God's love to narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify God's strictness
With a zeal God will not own.

If our love were but more simple
We should take God at God's word;
And our lives would be illumined
By the presence of our Lord.

From: Frederick William Faber (1814-63) alt.

Mysterium tremendum

In the Celtic triple spiral, there is a space where the three spirals connect. It is both a place of meeting and of sheer mystery. Its vast, vibrant emptiness reminds me that, in this life, we will never know all the names of God. Even as the Trinity evokes, it conceals. We will never exhaust the images we use to describe the One who holds us and sends us, who enfolds us and impels us in our eternal turning.

From: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2008/05/12/trinity-sunday-a-spiral-shaped-god/

Searching for God

There is a wonderful Chasidic story about the child of a rabbi who used to wander in the woods. At first his father let him wander but over time he became concerned. The woods were dangerous. The father did not know what lurked there.

He decided to discuss the matter with his child. One day he took him aside and said, "You know, I have noticed that each day you walk into the woods. I wonder, why do you go there?"

The boy said to his father, "I go there to find God."

“That is a very good thing,” the father replied gently. “I am glad you are searching for God. But, my child, don't you know that God is the same everywhere?”

“Yes,” the boy answered, “but I'm not.”

in David J. Wolpe, Teaching Your Children About God

Broken We Kneel

One day [my daughter] Emma saw a woman
Walking toward us covered in a veil and asked the
Inevitable, “What’s that, mommy?”

“Emma,” I answered, “that lady is a Muslim from
a far away place. And she dresses like that – and
covers her head with a veil – because she loves
God. That is how her people show they love God.”

My daughter considered these words. She stared
at the woman who passed us. She pointed at the
woman, then pointed at my hair, and further
quizzed, “Mommy, do you love God?”

“Yes, honey.” I laughed. “I do. You and I are
Christians. Christian ladies show love for God
by going to church, eating the bread and wine,
serving the poor, and giving to those in need. We
don’t wear veils, but we do love God.”

After this, Emma took every opportunity to point
to Muslim women during our shopping trips and
tell me, “Mommy, look, she loves God.” One day,
we were getting out of our car at our driveway at
the same time as our Pakistani neighbors. Emma
saw the mother, beautifully veiled, and, pointing at
her shouted, “Look, mommy, she loves God!”

My neighbor was surprised. I told her what I had
taught Emma about Muslim ladies loving God.
While she held back tears, this near stranger
hugged me, saying, “I wish all Americans
would teach their children so. The world would be
better. The world would be better.

Taken from Broken We Kneel
By Diana Butler Bass

(Quoted from McLaren, B. A Generous Orthodoxy. Pgs 298-299)

God’s Love

This morning a chain of thought began as I watched my daughter going off to school. It’s difficult to explain but a wave of love suddenly welled up within me and I actually felt a physical pain within me. This started me thinking of God’s love for us. I have always said that I have begun to understand God’s love far more since having children. One of the images that God uses to illustrate God’s love for us is that of Parent-Child.

I love my children in a way that is different from the way I love my wife – not less, just different. The love I have for them is different from the love I felt in the early days of my relationship with my wife – that young love of infatuation that also caused a physical pain within me (you know what I mean). And I thought, “Wow! God loves me like that too. I wonder if it also causes that kind of pain for him?”

My children irritate me at times, they frustrate me, they even make me really angry at times – but I still love them with a love that is so deeply entrenched within me. One of my greatest fears is of something bad happening to them – it would . . . I don’t know really – but it would hurt – BIG TIME!!! It would even destroy a part of me. That’s how God loves us.

But then I thought, God also uses images of loving us like a spouse and even like a lover (just read Song of Songs). Then I thought of Hosea and how God used Hosea’s life to illustrate God’s love for us. God asked Hosea to marry a prostitute – an outcast, one who is un-loved and God asked Hosea to buy her back even after she had betrayed Hosea and ended up being sold into slavery – and God used Hosea to show how God loves us.

That’s how God loves us. Are you getting it? God’s love is BIG – VERY BEEEG!!!! And, nothing can separate us from that love.

In view of all this, what can we say? If God is for us, who can be against us? Certainly not God, who did not even keep back his own Son, but offered him for us all! He gave us his Son---will he not also freely give us all things? Who will accuse God's chosen people? God himself declares them not guilty! Who, then, will condemn them? Not Christ Jesus, who died, or rather, who was raised to life and is at the right side of God, pleading with him for us! Who, then, can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble do it, or hardship or persecution or hunger or poverty or danger or death? As the scripture says, "For your sake we are in danger of death at all times; we are treated like sheep that are going to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! For I am certain that nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below---there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:31-39)