When I finish saying my say, Paul
is going to sing a song he sang at the memorial service for Betty Bryant.
"Love makes the time…." |
| There were two songs sung at that
service that spoke of the holy mystery as "love." The other was a hymn,
"O Love That Will Not Let Me Go." |
| If you have paid attention to
my teaching all these years, and to my praying, you know that I do not
believe in a person-God that "does" anything. While I believe in
praying, I do not believe in the kind of servant God who "answers"
prayers. Goodness knows that if there were such a God we wouldn't have
attended the memorial services for a 45 year-old lady who died after a
long fight with cancer and another lady who was murdered by one she was
attempting to help. |
| The events themselves deny the
existence of a person-God. Many aspects of the rituals of both services
(especially the Catholic service) were difficult to accept. Who believes
all that stuff anymore? |
| Yet both events were faith affirming.
Not that we were converted back to becoming churchgoers again. If anything,
the services confirmed our separation from such expressions of religion.
However, there is a reassuring comfort in a grounded trust in a "love that
will not let us go." I can let go of the faith, but faith won't let go
of me. I can deny the existence of a person-God, but I cannot deny the
overwhelming sense of being surrounded by a supportive life spirit. |
| The thing about the hymn I liked
is that it doesn't talk about "going to heaven," but about being united
with the original love from which we came. |
O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in
thee;
I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths
its flow may richer, fuller be.
|
| There are times when the Bible
agrees with me. For me, being embraced by love is a holy thing. First John
says my say, |
All who abide in love abide in God and God in them.
|
| I do not think of Jeni and Betty
as simply gone. I think of them abiding in love, the love that will not
let us go. |
|
- Art Morgan
|