Redemption

A friend writes me of her aunt ‘who longs for God and has gone the scary fundamentalist route that still hasn’t filled her up (but she’s scared the beejeezuz out of the rest of us). My mom keeps telling her that she has everything she already needs but she doesn’t get it. It makes me sad for her. She tries so hard and gets no happier. Not saying that I completely get it. Sometimes I still think shoes are the answer but it is a temporary insanity.’

Remember the Three Stooges routine where Larry starts yelling he can’t see, and Mo says what’s wrong, and Larry says I’ve got my eyes closed?

And there’s a Rumi poem about the guy knocking at a closed door, wanting what Methodists from Cleveland would call God to let him in, and then he finds out he’s been knocking from the inside?

So why does the search for God always end in disillusionment? If you think you’re lost, Baby, you best open your eyes and quit banging on the door, because God has always loved you, and could never, would never, never, ever, not in a zillion years, not in eternity, misplace you.

It Really Is That Simple

“The alarm woke me this morning,” my husband said, “and I was glad.” Usually he is awake before it goes off, and if he is sleeping, it means he’s really tired. “I was dreaming. I don’t remember the dream, but I know I was confronted with an unsolvable conundrum I didn’t want to solve. Then the alarm went off. ‘Eureka!,’ I said, ‘That’s the answer. Wake up.’ So I did.”