<html><body><div>Part 2</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What fills me with such sadness is
when I heard someone say, “I was in my twenties, just out of college, and so
on, and I discovered God; or I discovered the Bible; or something like that.”
And it became quite obvious that, no matter how many decades have passed since
then, that person is still living at the place of that discovery. That person
hasn’t grown.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Don’t get me wrong. God may well
have brought exactly the right thought, the right experience, the right nudge
for what was happening in that twenty-year-old’s life – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>AT THAT TIME</u></b>. I’m absolutely convinced that this happens way
more often than we may realise. But, especially when one is dealing with the
way in which we and God interact with one another, if there’s one constant
about absolutely everything in life, it’s that things <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>ALWAYS</u></b> change, especially the way we think about and relate
to one another. No matter in which decade of life we happen to be waltzing
through right now, I can guarantee that it’s not the same as how we experienced
God and God’s will a decade or two ago. Nor will it be how we experience God
and God’s will in another decade or two. There <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>IS</u></b> only one thing that doesn’t change, and that is that
God’s love for you and me, God’s Presence with you and me, is a certainty which
we can take to the bank.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“The heavens,” whispered the author
of the nineteenth Psalm, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” There must be
very few who’d disagree with that. Even an agnostic or an atheist might well be
overwhelmed with the spectacle of a universe or cosmos seemingly extending
beyond the human imagination.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“The heavens declare the glory of
God,” yet the heavens are not God, simply part of God’s humour and joy
declaring itself, and waiting for us to pick up on the details. The heavens,
the universe, the cosmos – call it what we will – they impinge on our minds and
our imaginations, waiting for them to explode with the realisation that there’s
incredibly much more to God and<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>how God
hopes that we’ll live.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Possibly that’s why the psalm’s
author ends “Let the words of (our) mouth(s) and the meditation(s) of our
heart(s) be acceptable in your sight, O Lord…” We don’t really have the ability
to know enough to understand that what we say, what we do, even what we think
about in the silence of hearts; we don’t even know enough to be able to say
with certainty that our best and highest desires are in line with what God
wants. We simply have to work on this, to search within ourselves; to listen to
what’s being said and see what’s being done around us; and to be prepared for
God to reach us, sometimes to correct us, to say that that’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOT</u></b> what I said. </span></p>
<h1 style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’m
sure you’ve come across the expression, “</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'>I
know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you
realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” That was Alan Greenspan. Or
was it God? Then that was followed up with, </span><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'>“I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be
particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I said.” <sup>2</sup></span></h1>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>That might well be God talking too!</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And, just for good measure, how
about this, “<span style="background: white; margin: 0px;">There are errors in this book. I do
not know where they are. If I did they wouldn't be there. But with close to two
hundred thousand words my probabilistic mind tells me some are wrong.” <sup>3</sup></span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>All of which
may be as good a way as any to address the issue of the content of the first
reading, because that’s one of the passages with which some people choose to beat
people up the side of the head.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The whole
point of the entire Bible is to demonstrate the Love of God and to show how our
ways can fall behind God’s so much. One of the problems we and others have with
this passage is that we tend to respond to them with fear, just as the first
hearers did.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But that’s to miss the
point.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The
commandments were given so that people would “fear” God in the classic sense of
understanding God’s greatness and how far beyond our understanding God is. God
never did – nor does God ever today – want people to go to bed scared spitless
about what might happen if they don’t wake up the morning. Nor does God want us
to be equally terrified when we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DO</u></b>
wake up. God was and is simply pointing out what it takes for society to be
regulated in such a way that absolutely no one is deprived of the possibly of
experiencing God’s love. God wants us to delve behind those commandments. Who <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ARE</u></b> our parents? Who has given
of their all to ensure that we’re given the best possible chance to celebrate
life? How can we possibly thank them? </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>IS</u></b> life, if not the most perfect
gift we could be given, therefore we mustn’t do <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>ANY</u></b>thing to mess that up – for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>ANY</u></b>one, even if we don’t know that person. We are to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>BE</u></b> Love, just as God is Love, so
obviously, that means that we must look constantly to see what are the needs of
everyone. Just as God is constantly making greater and greater self-revelation
to us; just as the universe is constantly expanding, challenging us to imagine
what limitless experiences there are in it. We grow closer and closer to God
through the way that we continually change our understanding and how we
continually interrelate to everyone.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>A
commentator on Exodus and the Ten Commandments describes how we must engage and
reengage in how we treat people. It’s a process of learning and developing, day
after day.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Love your
neighbor as yourself” – what does it mean? The author wrote, “Here is what it
means to me. To try to feel inside me what another human being is feeling.
Empathy. Sympathy. Compassion.</span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><br>
<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“That feeling is foreshadowed
near the beginning of the Bible’s story. Abraham’s seed are to act in a way
that will bring blessing to all earth’s families. Can we not all take on the
role of Abraham’s seed? Not just Jews. Not just Christians. Not just Muslims.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“That feeling is expressed in the
reason for treating the alien right: ‘because you know the alien’s soul.’ So we
are commanded to love him or her. The last of the Ten Commandments is: you
shall not covet. So the Decalogue too ends in a command about feeling. And, for
the record, let is not forget how the Ten Commandments begin: ‘I am the LORD
your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">They premise the whole thing on the exodus from Egypt!</i>” <sup>4</sup></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The next time someone says, “The
Bible says, and this is what I believe; it is this on which I base my life, my
opinions, my abilities to make judgements”; when this happens, then we are
compelled by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>OUR</u></b> beliefs to
say, “What Bible? How old were you when you came to that conclusion? What’s
happened or not happened to you since then? Because the God who’s always been a
part of my life is showing me that I don’t need to be afraid to go further down
the road that I may not have been aware that it existed just a few months or
years ago. The God who loves me, and to whom I’ve made a commitment, continues
to nudge me to think that those things which were once taken as absolutes may
look completely different today, and will, almost certainly, be quite different
tomorrow.”</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As someone suggested this week, “</span><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Maybe this is where churches and other
religious institutions step in to offer quiet places of reflection, spaces in
which people can come and lay down the burdens of their own lives and the lives
of others so that they don’t carry them home alone.” <sup>5</sup></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>NOTES:</span></b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>[1]</span></span></span></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>“Flight 1549
Pilot Tells of Terror and Intense Focus”</span></i><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> by Michael Wilson, <i>New York Times, </i>February
9, 2009, quoted in<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> “<span style="margin: 0px;">Why Doesn’t God Do More to Restrain Evil and
Suffering? Part 1”</span></i><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>By
Randy Alcorn, December 19, 2012</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a href="http://www.epm.org/blog/2012/Dec/19/restrain-evil-part-1"><font color="#0000ff">http://www.epm.org/blog/2012/Dec/19/restrain-evil-part-1</font></a></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'></span></b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<h3 style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'>2</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwijmLO42cbWAhUG3WMKHTDSB6gQFggrMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fauthor%2Fquotes%2F1334.Alan_Greenspan&usg=AFQjCNEECL_C9zlvx3fH0znSqSM-du5f7w"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 153);">Alan Greenspan Quotes (Author of The Age of Turbulence) -
Goodreads</span></a> </span><cite><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;'><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1334.Alan_Greenspan"><font color="#0000ff">https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1334.Alan_Greenspan</font></a></span></cite><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;'> </span></h3>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><font size="2"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'>3</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“<span style="background: white; margin: 0px; color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1203801"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World</span></a>”</span></i><span style="background: white; margin: 0px; color: rgb(24, 24, 24);"> by Alan Greenspan at site op. cit</span>
</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><font size="2"> </font></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>4</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“The Exodus”</i> by Richard Elliott Friedman,
© 2017. HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Pages 215-6.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>5</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Tending to Our Spirits in Times
of Tragedy”</span></i><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span><span lang="EN" style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>by <a href="https://sojo.net/biography/kaitlin-curtice"><span style="margin: 0px; color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Kaitlin Curtice</span></a> 10-03-2017
<span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(234, 115, 11);"><a href="http://go.sojo.net/site/R?i=dGLfVDo1fIEFHODmPCnlHA"><font color="#0000ff">http://go.sojo.net/site/R?i=dGLfVDo1fIEFHODmPCnlHA</font></a></span><span style="margin: 0px;"></span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
</div></body></html>