Monday, August 9, 2010

God as Compassion

I liked bink's comment on Letter to a Family Member so much, I asked her if I could post it separately.
She said yes.



bink writes:

"I like how you say what compassion is not.
It matches my vision of God.

How can there be a loving God in all this mess of the world?
Because God is a god of compassion: being with us in our suffering...
and that's about it.

The all-powerful, interfering, wish-granting, string-pulling, punishing, blessing God--I don't see a lot of evidence for that God.

God is the energy that helps sustain good;
which looks pretty much like nothing happening.

I don't see much sign of God interfering to end our suffering/clean up the mess we've made of the world.

But I feel compassion, and I sense that it is bigger than me."

[end bink]
__________
Illustration of a Sufi tale from Love Got Soul. The tale is not told, but you can easily make one up yourself.

6 comments:

  1. that is lovely.

    You may have stopped quoting TS Eliot, but I still do:
    "I am moved by fancies that are curled /
    around these images, and cling /
    the notion of some infinitely gentle / infinitely suffering thing"

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  2. The hell with TS Eliot. I'm gonna start quoting bink.

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  3. Hai!

    As far as a good story goes, I like the interfering Hebrew god; he's a creative genius! Albeit one with a jealous temper and other issues, (I suspect narcissism, manic-depression).
    The Cosmic Byronic Hero.
    Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
    ( . . . or according to believers, dangerous not to know.)

    Apart from a good story, I much prefer "God as Compassion".

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  4. BINK: I thought anything with a doglike creature would fit your words.

    CLOWN: Oh, that is lovely! I actually don't know that quote. (I was really always a dilettante of an Eliot quoter.)

    POODLE: bink is eminently quotable! Just last night I thought of her famous words:
    "Turn off your computer during thunderstorms."
    (Wasn't that some storm?)

    M'RET: Welcome home! Can't wait to hear more about the Star Trek con!
    Yeah, that old god is really something--as George Takei said of Shatner:
    he has a big shiny ego and it needs a lot of stroking.

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  5. it´s a great complement to that post of yours, simply great and concise, thks for sharing it this way.

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