After we complete this chapter from Thomas Merton, we will be on to a new writer. (FYI: today is devotion 1600. As I hear from so few people about these weekday devotions, please feel free to let me know if this has been a good journey for you. It has kept me alive...so I thank you.)
It would be sentimental folly to expect people to trust one another when they obviously cannot be trusted. But at least they can learn to trust God. they can bring themselves to see that the mysterious power of god can, quite independently of human malice and error, protect people unaccountably against themselves, and that God can always turn evil into good, though perhaps not always in a sense that would be understood by the preachers of sunshine and uplift. If they can trust and love God, Who is infinitely wise and Who rules the lives of people, permitting them to use their freedom even to the point of almost incredible abuse, they can love people who are evil. They can learn to love them even in the sin, as God has loved them. If we can love the people we cannot trust (without trusting them foolishly) and if we can to some extent share the burden of their sin by identifying ourselves with them, then perhaps there is some hope of a kind of peace on earth, based not on the wisdom and the manipulations of people but on the inscrutable mercy of God.
When we trust our God to be the One who keeps promises, then we are living within the life that is called the Reign of God. For in that reality, we can go ahead and be led by the love of God that we trust to be the power to transform and renew all things. Oh, to be able to live there on a daily basis! If we are people who can come up with the mighty ways of going to war and turning against one another with enough contempt that we would sooner destroy them than enter into an honest conversation with them, then we can also, by the power of the Holy Spirit, turn to this God of ours who will sustain us as we become vulnerable and call on this mercy of God to make something new with us and among us. To be able to see our enemies as beloved of God is not easy...but it is the real life of the Reign of God that is already at hand.
Connection: Living beyond our fear - just a bit - changes the world right now. So, let's live it up today.
Loving and Merciful God, lead us through the ways of your blessed Reign. We long to stroll in confidence within the land of forgiveness, reconciliation and hope. Amen.
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