God only blesses, Nature may curse

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live… Deuteronomy 30:19

Autonomy of creation
Influenced by an ancestral religious belief that when a calamity befalls us or others, we may not express it in words, but we always have the feeling that it was God's punishment, and we end up asking, "Did I do something against you, God?" or "Why is this happening to me?" To which I sometimes sarcastically reply, "And why not to you?" Anything can happen to any of us.

It was this idea that Job's friends tried to instill in him, "If all this tragedy has happened to you, losing your wealth, your health and your children, it is because you have done something against God who is now punishing you." Job professes his innocence and indirectly states that no one is free from tragedies, disasters, even though he has not broken any laws, neither God’s nor nature’s.

Creation is autonomous. God created it and gave it independence and autonomy, as He has done for us. God who creates nature with its laws, will not be the first to break them by capriciously intervening against these same laws. It is true that we no longer understand nature in the manner of Newton's physics, that is, functioning mechanically like a Swiss clock.

Even understanding reality as we understand it today in the manner of quantum physics, where the laws of nature do not always occur at all times and in all places in the same way but according to a statistical probability, even understanding a nature where there is room for chance, uncertainty and indetermination, nothing happens that God does not know and has not foreseen. Creation has a high degree of autonomy, but it is neither outside of God's design nor is God outside of it, for He is immanent, that means He is at the heart of everything that He has created.

God's punishments are human anthropomorphisms
The Bible in the Old Testament is full of episodes where God appears as vengeful and punitive: the flood (Genesis 6:9–8:22), the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9), Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:20–21, 19:23–28), and the ten plagues of Egypt (Exodus, chapters 7–12) among others.

The truth is that God does not punish anyone, God does not know how to punish, He does not know how to curse, He only knows how to bless, and He only wants what is good for us. The image we must have of God is the one that Jesus of Nazareth transmits to us. The Old Testament image is an anthropomorphism, that is, it is a way of imagining God in a human way. It is a human projection of God's identity. Since I am punitive and vengeful, I project onto God the image I have of myself.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:8-9

God is not responsible, nor is it willed by Him, the evil that happens to us, whether it be in the form of an accident, calamity or illness. God who makes rain fall on the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:45) loves us all unconditionally, He does not love the good more than the bad, nor the righteous more than the unrighteous.

Nature punishes
‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ Ezekiel 18:2

The fact that God does not punish does not mean that there are no punishments. Every good deed has a reward and every bad deed has a punishment. The rewards are given by God in the form of graces granted; the punishments are handed out by nature.

God always forgives, men forgive sometimes, and nature neither forgives nor forgets. What we do against nature, whether our human nature, individual and social, or the physical nature, will be paid for by either us or someone else somewhere down the line.

In other words, “what goes around comes around”; both the good and the evil that we do have a boomerang effect. As the Portuguese people are known to say, "evil stays with those who practice it", or even "what they do here is paid for here".

Take for example the consumption of alcohol: our liver has the capacity to breakdown a certain amount of alcohol, anything more than that amount will damage the liver and the consequences are always harmful, as we know. Sin is the e-mail, penance or punishment is the attachment.

The astronomical universe, whether that of physical nature, animal nature or human nature, is governed by the same laws; no one breaks these laws without paying the price.

At the individual level, therefore, what we do against our nature will be paid for by us or by some descendants of ours; what is certain is that someone will pay. Nothing is done against nature that does not have consequences. Punishment or penance follows sin, and is subsequent to it like the attachment of an email.

The planet's temperature is rising due to an excessive accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that prevents the heat of the planet from escaping into the outer space thus trapping it in the atmosphere. Some consequences are already visible, but they will get far worse if we do not start to drastically reduce the emission of this gas.  

God adapts to us
God always writes straight on crooked lines.
Every cloud has a silver lining.

When we break a plate, God picks up the broken pieces and tries to put them back together. When Adam and Eve sinned, God did not just stand by unmoved and unperturbed, savouring nature’s vengeance which has turned against those who broke its laws, punishing them, instead He devised a plan to save them.

The prodigal son abandoned his father in search of a false freedom, and the father let him go, respecting his wrong choice, knowing full well that certain lessons are learned only experientially, by getting it wrong before getting it right.

Furthermore, we cannot force an adult to do good; a child who does not know the difference between good and evil, yes, we can force him to do good; for an adult, however, good has to be his choice, not an imposition.

God who, out of respect for our freedom, allows us to do evil, has no desire for revenge like the Old Testament tells us by means of certain anthropomorphisms. On the contrary, God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is a compassionate God, not even slow to anger, but completely devoid of it. Like prodigal children far away from Him, He never forgets or loses sight of us, He is always on the lookout in the hope we come back one day, and when we eventually do, He throws a party to celebrate our return.

The sheep ceases to be orderly and wants to be the black sheep. It leaves the flock, wanting to see what's beyond to discover new pastures, to experiment, and ends up getting lost. But the shepherd does not abandon it in the face of danger, and when he sees that it is lost in its quest and wants to return to the flock, the shepherd searches high and low until he finds the sheep. When he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders and rejoices; he and his friends throw a feast to celebrate its return.

We men killed the Saviour of Humanity, we were free to do so, but God who writes straight on crooked lines and who manages to draw good out of our evil ways, who always adapts to our mistakes, seeking the best solution for them, rose him from the dead to make him the first of those who are saved.

God does not want the death of the sinner. In the face of our evil, even deserved evil, He always seeks ways to save us from situations in which we put ourselves or others, or nature puts us. This happens because God is the supreme law and everything is subject to Him no matter how crooked our paths may be.

God, because He loves us and respects our freedom and our bad choices, lets us enter the tunnel of error and anxiously awaits us on the other side. And if He sees that we do not come out and are in trouble, whenever we call upon Him, He shows up at the appointed hour with the seventh cavalry to save us from the cobwebs we got ourselves entangled in.

Conclusion: God always forgives and forgets, He always blesses, never curses; nature, on the contrary, does not forgive, nor forgets and always punishes.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

 

The Sea of God and the River of Life

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ John 14:2-6
 
Babies and small children are not aware of their own existence and often speak about themselves in the third person. When we gain self-awareness at the age of 6 or 7, that is, when we become aware that we exist as a human person, free and independent, we realize that we are finite, that we are, as Heidegger said, a being made for death.

It is around this time that we search for the meaning of our life and ask ourselves the three classic questions: where did we come from? Where are we going? What is the meaning of life? The agnostics say that they do not know, that they do not have enough information to answer these questions; the atheists say yes, they know, that they come from nothing, they go to nothing and no matter how much they search for the meaning of life, something that begins in nothing and ends in nothing cannot, by logical reasoning, be more than nothing. In mathematics, zero plus zero equals zero.  

The believers say that they come from God, they go to God and they live to give glory to God, putting the talents they have received from him at the service of humanity, thus reaching the full realization of themselves and the happiness that will never be complete in this life. Hence, Saint Augustine said: "You have made us Lord for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  

God and water: beginning of life
Life is like running water...

All rivers end up in the sea and the sea never overflows because it is from the sea that rivers are born. The water cycle is a metaphor of human life: life comes from God who is the creator of everything and everyone and life returns to God.

“In him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28

Just as God is at the same time immanent and transcendent to all creation, the water contained in the sea is transcendent to every form of life, for it exists by itself, independent and apart from living beings. At the same time, it permeates them all, for there is no life without water. Paraphrasing the book of the Acts of the Apostles, it is in it that we truly live, move and exist from the physical point of view; from the spiritual point of view, it is in Him, God, that we live, move and exist. Water is the basis for physical life, God is the basis of spiritual life.

Human body is made up of 70% water, so let’s learn from it
On its pilgrimage through this world, water does not argue or go through its obstacles, it goes around them from above or below or from the sides; it always finds a way out. That is how our lives should be like: there are no problems without a solution and as the saying goes, what has no solution is already solved since it is not even a problem, because every problem has a solution.

We can live without a leg, without an arm, without a father, without a mother, tied to a wheelchair, as paraplegics, quadriplegics. Like water that flows around and flows back again, so must we when faced with a misfortune go around and not rebel against the situation, and rediscover the meaning of life. There must be no room for despair, suicide or euthanasia. Stephen Hawking, who in his lifetime was regarded as the smartest person in the world, lived in a wheelchair, could only speak with the aid of a computer and had very limited mobility of his arms and hands.

“Waters passed do not move mills”, it's water under the bridge. Just as water once passed, no longer moves the mill that was left behind, let us leave the past in the past, let us not allow it to negatively influence or jeopardise our present.

Water cycle and life cycle
Water is contained in the sea; this is the largest reservoir where all water ends up and from where all water comes. With the help of winds and tides, seawater evaporates and, in the form of water vapour, is carried by the same wind to the atmosphere above the earth. There it condenses into droplets of pure water which then fall on the earth in the form of rain, snow, frost and dew, and penetrate the earth, forming rivers and underground water tables.

Subsequently, this water emanates from the earth in the form of springs, also called streams, of which the larger ones give rise to a river. Like water, before we were born, we already existed in the mind of God; and as the water that was pure incarnates in a "body" consisting of the mineral salts of the earth that houses it, so do we, pure in the mind of God, acquire a physical body genetically in conformity with that of our parents who conceived us.
    
Like a river that starts small and grows bigger with the help of its tributaries, streams, rivulets, brooks and other rivers, so do we grow in stature and character with the help of our parents, our brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, teachers, catechists, doctors, etc. There are rivers that sadly do not reach the sea, they are lost in the heat of the desert sands; just as there are lives that are lost, that fail to reach their objectives and are extinguished.

A river may already have a great inflow, but it can always receive more water, even from small streams. In the same way, we learn until we die; there is no one so poor that he has nothing to give, and no one so rich that he has nothing to receive.

Like a river, we cannot stay still no matter how beautiful the view is, because we don’t have a permanent dwelling here. We can even form a lake like the Jordan River forms the Sea of Galilee, but the water flows out and the Jordan continues to the Dead Sea which is dead not because it does not receive, but because it does not give. The Jordan River dies in the Dead Sea because, unlike the Sea of Galilee, it does not flow out and continues to the Red Sea, it stays still.

Along the paths of great rivers, large dams are built, huge concave walls to retain the force of the water. This force is routed or sublimated in the form of canals to irrigate the fields and give life to the rural area or harnessed in the form of electrical energy to make urban life possible. In our lives we also need great restraints of our basic instincts, great sacrifices and penances so that this energy is channelled to achieve high personal, cultural and social goals and benefits. Nothing worthwhile in life is achieved without effort, sweat and tears.

In deltas or estuaries, rivers finally reach the sea after a long journey of thousands of kilometres, like the Nile River. Whether a short life or a long life, our life will also come to an end one day; as water lets itself go into the sea, to die is to let oneself go back to the bosom of God where we have already been.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater... (Isaiah 55:10), so must we also not return to heaven empty-handed, but with the fruits grown from the seeds that were the talents that God gave us. To die is therefore to return home; a return with shouts of joy, carrying our sheaves (Psalm 126:6).

To live is to leave
From the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Mark 10:6-7

For those whom English is a second language, there is a tendency to pronounce "live" and "leave" in the same way. Inspired by this fact I came to the conclusion that to live is to leave, requiring of us a continuous letting go. Life begins when a man and a woman leave their respective home to form a new one together.

In the conjugal act, an X or Y sperm cell rushes to join the ovum and the two form one flesh, as the scripture on marriage says. Once this primordial cell has been conceived in the fallopian tube, life requires that it leaves this space and migrates to the uterus where it remains and grows for the next nine months.

Nine months later when the baby is fully developed, life requires that it leaves, it cannot remain in the womb because it will end up killing itself and the mother. Leaving with labour pains, he or she is welcomed into a larger womb that is the family where the baby feels the unconditional love of parents and siblings. However, in order to continue to grow, to live, he or she has to leave this environment of unconditional love to go to primary school where love is no longer unconditional. There is no child who does not cry on the first day at school.

When the child has become familiar with the school and it has become like a second family, he has to leave it behind to go to a secondary school. Then he leaves this one also to go to a university, which may require leaving his homeland too, because there is no university where he lives. Many emigrate to go to another country for a better life.

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. Matthew 19:29

The Hebrews became a people when they left slavery behind in Egypt, crossing the desert towards the Promised Land; this is the archetype of all types of progress, from the scientific to the spiritual. To be a disciple of Christ one must also leave. There is no growth of any kind without dying to the former life. A snake, in order to grow, has to shed the skin it had before. To grow means to die; this explains the physical growth of our body; some cells die to make room for others. From the biological point of view, every seven years we have a different body, because none of the cells that made it up seven years ago exist now.

Leaving life throughout the world in bits and pieces
This has been my motto since I became a missionary. Since I was 10 years old, I have never been in the same place for more than 5 years. I have lived in various places in Portugal, then in Spain, England, Ethiopia, Canada, Israel, and the United States. Instead of living my whole life always in the same place and with the same people, I live my life like a pilgrim, leaving pieces of myself here and there to be picked up when I reach the Promised Land of Heaven.

Conclusion: There is no life without water. The water cycle, that begins and ends in the sea, mirrors the life cycle, that begins and ends in God. By water, we live, move and exist physically; in God, we live, move and exist spiritually.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC