"It is indeed a challenge to abandon the long-held belief that God yearns to blame and punish us, ask us to measure up or express disappointment and disapproval at every turn. It is part of our hardwiring. But we can feel, nonetheless, God nudging us beyond our tired, atrophied complacence toward something more oceanic and spacious. We feel God's desire for fullness to dwell in us. We are always being pushed and inched closer to the 'God who is always greater,' as Saint Ignatius frames it . . . . God wants to be found in the mess inside. We have settled for a 'partial God,' as Richard Rohr puts it, when every minute of every moment, we are asked to 'move beyond the mind we have' and land increasingly on a renewed and expansive view of God."
Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, a highly successful gang intervention program, writes in his newest book Barking to the Choir:
"It is indeed a challenge to abandon the long-held belief that God yearns to blame and punish us, ask us to measure up or express disappointment and disapproval at every turn. It is part of our hardwiring. But we can feel, nonetheless, God nudging us beyond our tired, atrophied complacence toward something more oceanic and spacious. We feel God's desire for fullness to dwell in us. We are always being pushed and inched closer to the 'God who is always greater,' as Saint Ignatius frames it . . . . God wants to be found in the mess inside. We have settled for a 'partial God,' as Richard Rohr puts it, when every minute of every moment, we are asked to 'move beyond the mind we have' and land increasingly on a renewed and expansive view of God."
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorTarn Wilson is the author of the memoir The Slow Farm and numerous essays. You may read more of her work at tarnwilson.com. Archives
September 2020
Categories |