"Arrow Up"

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”

-Pedro Arrupe

    


      “More than anything else, Christianity is a love song” says Diana Butler Bass in A People’s History of Christianity. I find the same truth throughout Scripture: “Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:37)… “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13)… “For G-d so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)… “G-d is love” (1 John 4:8). Ultimately, the Gospel is a story of love. Therefore, in love, we must be able to find G-d. But what stops us from seeing love- and therefore from seeing G-d?

      This week, Fiona talked about sin. A stuffy word for most of us... But first, what's sin? Thomas Merton says, “All sin starts with the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered.” So according to Merton, sin starts with the ego- with believing that my desires are most important. Because in this mindset, there is no room for G-d. No need for love or any external force- I am all. So to experience love, I need to step outside of the self-centeredness- step out of my pride, and acknowledge that G-d works both in me and outside of me. Then there is room for love. G-d can become clearer. But how do I let go of pride? Of selfishness? Of this human tendency to follow my ego? Only through G-d Himself (…Herself, Itself…). Fiona had a tip: anytime we begin to feel this human tendency to sin, “Arrow Up” (up being figurative here, as G-d is not only "up"). Acknowledge the selfishness (or whatever it might be) and offer it to G-d. Think “Arrow Up.”