The sinner who is ready to accept love as a gift from God is far closer to God than the "just" man who insists on being loved for his own merits.
One of the keys to real religious experience is the shattering realization that no matter how hateful we are to ourselves, we are not hateful to God. This realization helps us to understand the difference between our love and His. Our love is a need, His a gift. We need to see good in ourselves in order to love ourselves. He does not. He loves not because we are good, but because He is. But as long as we worship a God who is only a projection of ourselves, we fear a tremendous and insatiable power who needs to see goodness in us and who, for all the infinite clarity of His vision finds nothing but evil, and therefore insists upon revenge. -Thomas Merton; The New Man
It seems every time I run across that last section, I quote it in a blog post. I've quoted it here probably more than once before. It's powerful. It goes to the heart of so much of what we carry around with us every day. We either hate ourselves because we see ourselves and unworthy and unlovable, even by God, or we've found a way to be self-righteous asses whom God apparently approves because we've "done enough" of whatever it is we're supposed to have done to get such approval. We're a pitiful lot.
Another problem is that we will tend to treat others in the same way we see ourselves being treated, or thought of, by God. If we understand that God loves because He is and so, loves us despite our unworthiness, then we will likely tend to love others in the same way. On the other hand, if we see this God who has a need to see us being good in order to approve of us, then yep, you guessed it, we will likely be the kind of people who will look at our fellow men with the same "need." We will need to see them being good before we will bestow our love on them - as if they had to deserve it from us - as if we were someone they had to impress. What sick puppies we are. How we deeply need to be fully renovated.
July 26, 2009
> 10:36 AM
038
