It is not too simple to say of the whole human enterprise through thousands of years that at any moment, only one of two things is happening. Either we are cursing and struggling to be seen and loved. Or we are blessing and being peace.
When people say they don’t believe in God, mostly they mean that there’s no sign of a being up there deciding just how things will go, watching our every move, working out how to punish us for the bad things we do and bless us for the good. I don’t believe in that sort of god either, and I hope you don’t . . .
Something like eagerness for war seems to animate the fiery rhetoric of leaders and legislators on the right, who will not lift a finger for peace with Iran — but do keep one on the trigger.
We say we seek unity, community, love, peace—a new heaven and a new earth. But we cannot get to unity through our longings. We are too disordered by our own worries. Therefore, profound experiences of joined humanity usually come only in the face of mortal danger. . . . Still, sometimes there is a shift in how we see . . .
I do not know how you should use your precious hours, but note this. You seek justice and you seek peace. Very often, it will be one or the other, not both: peace or justice. Very often, they do not come together in time. You must work this out for yourself.
Was there really a Judas? Or was the character “Judas” a creation of the first Christians who told these stories–a way for them to utter an ineradicable curse upon all their brothers who would not see Messiah in their master Jesus? I do not know the answer to that question. All of us know, however, that through every generation from the first, the church beat words into weapons to torment Jews and kill them as Judases. How unblessed are those who see others as enemies and thus preserve their righteousness.
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