Yes, I believe in providence (Y-not question the Sunday Readings)

by Ynot , Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 09:02 (309 days ago) @ Brian Coyne

Well, Brian, you did ask. And No, I'm not one who has risked everything - except when I left the monastery/priesthood and found myself in a world I knew nothing about, but that's another story. But I'm not one of the valiant missionaries. What I write is about the providence I believe in - with no capital "P".

You mention again 'nature red in tooth and claw' as if there is a connection between the food chain and what we saw being done to people in those remote mountains of Afghanistan on the 4 Corners program.

I do not "believe" in a Providence that takes care of little birds - because it's an empty myth. They die in large numbers, killed by cats or plate glass windows etc.
Jesus knew that when he said Do not fret. Be like the birds and get on with your flying. Have you ever seen how birds love to fly? Wouldn't I love to be a bird!

We are providence. After 13.4 billion years, things have come to the point where an animal form of life can see, and reflect, and draw conclusions from the past, and even look forward into that will happen when...

This force evolving in the world is one aspect of what I call god, and with Abraham on that mountain long long ago, I have come to realise that God provides. Not for us to take short cuts to short term solutions to partially understood problems or conflicts - like destroying the crop to stop the flow of Heroin to our streets, resulting in the farmers being forced to give up their children to evil terrorisers.

Jesus believed in this providence and tried to teach a few how to live in a way that contributed something positive to its progress. The first thing I notice about Jesus' teaching is that there is no bullshit in it. He doesn't go on about nature 'red in tooth and claw' and throw up his hands in despair. He says You can live intelligently IF you learn not to be scared to try, not to be scared of losing your life, not to be paralysed by the horror of it all.

How does this providence work? We are a continuum. All life is a continuum. I am immensely grateful to the 4 Corners team for showing us the horrors they do, for it allows my heart, torn and bleeding, to be one with those tortured devastated people. They feel nobody cares. But somewhere somebody does care, and even I can cry in my heart all night as once I might have cried my way around a church with Jesus on his way to the cross. We rant about celibate bishops and priests who have no care for child victims of their abuse, and as I read somewhere here these last few days, it's because they don't have children and don't feel that fierce protective force that parents feel. We are angry because those celibates break the continuum, they break the bond of solidarity, as much as those evil opium tyrants in Afghanistan break solidarity with their victims and with all of us.

When I was a priest I hurt a lot of people, in too many cases by my willful misconduct. When I left I hurt my closest friends, but they stuck by me, they provided acceptance of what they could not accept, absorbing the pain in themselves instead of throwing it back at me, and by their providing we survived, my Sue and me.

Your New Zealand nuns in WA did what they could in solidarity with people they thought needed their help - and even now they inspire you to work this magic of Catholica which gives solidarity a new dimension and makes the continuum of providence real in a totally new way.

That rich mine of spirituality, that brave and honest atheist, Godless Goss, has another inspiring piece in The Age today [LINK], about creation myths in religion and science. So he provides some food for all, he looks ahead, and puts his head to the task of understanding in truth the continuum in which we swim.

We are providence. We are the level of being in this dimension that can fore-see, can pro-vide, and as James quite often says we seem to be doing it better overall.

Abandon yourself to providence? Is that what Jesus did? I don't think so. He sailed right into the teeth of the storm, but having foreseen the consequences he kept his calm, and in the end was vindicated. He still inspires.

We are providence: for us to provide what each one can, you by managing this meeting place, this smelting pot where values are purified of misconceptions, me by daring to write what I wish I had the courage to live, our victims of child abuse whose hearts must have been torn last night to see that father, kneeling there in his shame at having to give up his children, caught in the trap of keeping his own life at the expense of his integrity in the hope that while he lived he might save them later - for if they killed him there and then they would kill his wife too and still take the children...

This is our world: it is our job to provide: not one of us is sure to survive, to prosper, but overall we are getting more provident. As they say: "Don't let the bastards get you down!"

tony

'TonyL
"A post is a free gift, and it will go where it pleases."'