Once again, I love the beginning of this.. "There are no accidents. God is not a well-intentioned bungler. All things that happen, even the most ostensibly terrible ones, happen by God's will. If you don't see the point, please look again.. there are no accidents. To realize this is to enter into God's love." It really should be placed on doorposts of houses and in our hearts. I think about that almost all the time. Everything happens for a reason, it's just really hard to see sometimes. Sometimes it seems like there was absolutely no reason. But everything is connected and helps us become who we are. I think it's better to learn and try and find the good in everything that's happened, instead of being bitter and taking it out of the rest of the world.
I don't know what to say about the rest of the reading that everyone has already heard or said. This reading just reminded me of teen church nights.
When I hear "everything happens for a reason", I can't help but note what a wonderful excuse for thinking this is. Each chop that ended in the slaughter of 800,000 lives in Rawanda in 1993 happened for a reason. It's a good thing, otherwise I may have felt pretty bad... As long as there is a plan, and determinism is at the wheel, I can just go to sleep and not really think at all. What a relief. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, Heather, no one ever suffers anything in the plural. 100,000 sufferings aren't more suffering than 1 suffering.
ReplyDeleteThe question this reading is getting at isn't "Who is right and who is wrong about the world", it's "How can *I* help change the world?"