Excerpt of Interview with Palestinian leader Eli Chacour, follower of Jesus, author of Blood Brothers

From SOPHIA Vol.54 number 2, Spring 2024

“Unless We Share the Land Together,
We Are Doomed to Disappear Together.”

An interview with Archbishop Elias Chacour,
Author of Blood Brothers (his own family’s
tragic story of how his father and brother were
kidnapped by the Israeli Army, their church was
blown up, and they were banished from their
village, yet his father said they needed to love
their enemies—the Israelis as Jesus taught)

Elias Chacour is
Emeritus,
Melkite Catholic Archdiocese
of Akka, Haifa, Nazareth, and All Galilee
and Leader of Mar Elias Educational Institutions including a high school with 1200 students; 60% Muslim, 40% Christian, Druze... There are some Jewish teachers, but no longer any Jewish students.

Sophia: Westerners were quick to condemn Hamas’s
killing of Israeli civilians last
year, yet have been more
likely to excuse or ignore the
atrocities being committed
by the state of Israel against
Palestinians. Why do you
believe that is?

Elias Chacour: It is the traditional way in the Western world to
justify everything Israel does. Israel
is considered a divine entity. It can
do no wrong. That’s why there is so
little sympathy with the Palestinians.

We have to understand that the
violence did not happen out of the
blue. It’s like a circle in the chain.
Palestinians have been suffering for
75 years. They lost their homes. They
lost their independence. They were under siege in Gaza. All the people in
Gaza are Palestinians from Palestine, but they were reduced
to refugees in their own country and scattered around the
world. So, it’s understandable that, at some point,
they would revolt.
But it was too atrocious.
Of course, I condemn it. But
what has been done to the
Palestinians, both before the
Hamas attack and after it, as
retaliation, is also atrocious.

It is unbelievable and unacceptable. Israel is demolishing a whole section of Gaza
and reducing the people to refugees, without
any excuse. They want to destroy, and they want to demolish.
They want to finish with the existence of the Palestinians.
We are used to seeing the Western world being one-sided
and say that whatever Israel does is legitimate and good. Even
to massacre, kill, and destroy is good because they are the chosen people. My goodness, this isn’t God’s judgment!

The Palestinians lost everything. Their country, their independence,
and their dignity. Everything. They are a scattered people.
They have lost everything. What Israel has done in Gaza is an
atrocity. It is an act of revenge.

The Jews have a good memory. They remember the Holocaust, which is good. They don’t want to forget it, and they shouldn’t!

But they blame Palestinians. How can they blame us?
The Jews say they are here because this was their home 2,000
years ago. Fine. They were deported by the Romans, and we were
not.
We were here, too. We stayed here. We waited here. And
then we welcomed them when they came in. But we cannot accept what they are doing to us.

SOPHIA: There are many in the West who say that there’s no
such thing as Palestine and that Jordan might as
well be the Arab homeland. But you clearly have a
deep Palestinian identity.

Eli Chacour: Absolutely. Why do you think that Westerners have a hard time
understanding that all Arabs are not alike, and that Palestine is
a real place with a real people?

I think it is because the Zionist propaganda convinced the
Western world that they have to compensate for what was done
to the Jews during World War II—the Holocaust...
I remember my father told us, within a few days, we might
have Jewish soldiers come to our village. That was in 1948. He
said, these are the survivors of a certain satanic plan in Germany
aiming at destroying all the Jews... And
some would be coming to our village. We need to show them that
somewhere in this world, they are welcome. They are our blood
brothers. That’s why I wrote my book, Blood Brothers.

SOPHIA: That was a beautiful part of your autobiography.
Initially, your father wanted to welcome the Jews
because they had nowhere else to go.

Eli Chacour: I want to say something very dangerous. The land of Palestine does not belong to the Jews. Yet, it cannot belong to the Palestinians either.
The land is God’s and both have to share the land!

That’s why I wrote my second book, We Belong to the Land. The Jews can say that. The Palestinians have the right to say that also. Unless we share the land together, we are doomed to disappear together.

SOPHIA: The State of Israel has sometimes claimed that they
are trying to protect Palestinian Christians from
Islamist terrorists and radicals. Have you found
this to be the case?

Eli Chacor: No, no, no, no.... The Christian Palestinian villages
that were destroyed by the creation of the State of Israel are
many—about twenty villages...the Jews who
came, and they were welcomed by us, and then as a response
to our welcome, they destroyed our villages...

Eli Chacour:
... two Christian women were going to a church in Gaza, and the
Israeli snipers shot them...

To read the whole interview go to:
The Journal of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy, page 15-17
https://melkite.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sophia-v54-02-2024-Spring.pdf

Those wishing to support Archbishop Elias’s educational apostolate can
donate to the Pilgrims of Ibillin (pilgrimsofibillin.org/donate-now/)


In the LIGHT of Justice, Sharing, Kindness, Peace-creating,

Daniel Wilcox

Review of THE STORYTELLER by Jodi Picoult

Note:
It's highly ironic/tragic/weird that in the midst of reading novelist Picoult's modern thematic revisiting of the Holocaust and the nature of human evil that the massacre of Jewish people at the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania occurred.

As William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

THE STORYTELLER by Jodi Picoult

I don’t like the novel's ending at all; don’t agree with it thematically, morally, or as a fitting climatic plot conclusion. Not at all.

But then I didn’t like the very slow-stalebreadish, unbelievable beginning of the book either!

But the beginning and ending are bad for exactly opposite reasons.

The beginning is bad because Picoult’s character of the atheist Jewish baker who is guilt ridden, scarred from an accident, and selfishly insecure isn’t convincing. Seems artificial and implausible.

Even though Picoult is seeking to root the story of good and evil, right and wrong, truth and deception, guilt and forgiveness in the present by having this weak, surfacey current Jewish narrative begin her long, deep, troubling revisiting of the German-caused Holocaust, I don't think it works, at least not at the start. By the end of the novel, a reader may change his mind, but more on that later.

If I hadn’t been assigned this book for the new club I joined last month, I might have quit by page 100. Too weak of characterization, too many unconvincing plot steps, too many overly detailed long-boring descriptions of Jewish bread-making (all of which seem like Picoult going overboard on trying to show how diligently and thoroughly she studied Jewish baking in order to be accurate).

In contrast, the long horrific retelling of the 20th century horror is all too to vivid, all to real, and the book's shocking ending is too convincing, too disturbing and, too unfinishing!

SPOILER ALERT:

I understand why Sage doesn’t forgive Joseph, and why she rejects Mary’s advice, and maybe even why she decides to kill Joseph:

1. She thinks Joseph’s massacres of Jews can’t be forgiven, and she is extremely angry at him for killing her grandmother’s best friend, and intending to kill grandmother.

2. Sage isn’t a Christian like Mary, not at all. To forgive would be to belittle, excuse, and end the horror of her grandmother’s horrific lived-story. Besides, Sage wants to keep the bitterness within her against Joseph, because it is one vital link to her grandmother that she would lose if she forgave him.

3. She deeply wants revenge and justice. If Joseph is taken by the U.S. Criminal Justice System and deported, he may get away with his life-long deception of his mass murder, since Leo has already stated that often European governments don’t execute those deported.
And she wants to personally feel and see her revenge carried out. She is closing the book, ending the horrific story now.

4. BUT why does Sage—who seems to care for Leo—lie and deceive him in the end?!
Is she reverting to her past immoral self-centered behavior?

--Is seeking to honor her grandmother’s deep wish that no one know her story since it is beyond words to describe? Leo in contrast says he is going to broadcast the whole horrific account far and wide. And Sage doesn’t want that.

--Does she have doubts about how she really feels about Leo. She says Leo said he loved her, but I don’t recall her ever saying she loves him. He loves her deeply, but maybe she, like with Adam, is only lusting with Leo?

There seem to be hints of that when she balks at his idea of her moving to D.C. to be with him instead of jumping into his arms with joy.

Also, by the downturn in the last paragraph, Picoult continues the plot and theme of unfinished story, continues the personality of Sage as a sometimes self-defeating person, avoids the happily-ever-after plot (that Picoult has been dismissive of as when she had her narrator put down Disney-ish fairy tales instead of the far more ‘grimm’ tales of the past).

And there are probably other unexplored points I’ve not yet considered.

This novel is a feast to chew the cud on, a great one not only of story-telling, but for literary reflection and analysis.

Reflective Questions:

#1 Why does Picoult have Sage get the poison from Mary’s Roman Catholic shrine garden?!!

#2 Why does Picoult bring in the whole “Jesus-loaf” spoof other than as a satire against Christianity and a way to lighten a dark novel? (When the plot step happened I was really turned off by it because it was such a parody of such real news stories, such a stark contrast with the very real Holocaust news.

#3 Why is the odd assistant baker in the store even there with such his weird talking style, in clipped haikus?

#4 Why is the store called the Our Daily Bread?
#5 Why does Sage murder Joseph with poisoned bread?

#6 Why do the blue-black petals of the monkshood “in the pale palm of Mary’s glove” after Sage cuts them look like “stigmata”?!
And all the other blood images in the narrative such as when she cuts herself to become blood sisters with Diarga?

#7 Why is Sage called Sage, especially since she is one?
And Pepper and Saffron?

#8 Why does Picoult make Sage’s fornication a situation of adultery?

#9 Why is Sage made to be so isolated, even from her sisters who don’t seem to be bad individuals?

#10 Is Joseph’s actual German name “Hartmann” a characteronym of theme and meaning?

#11 Why does the novel end with a large number of contradictory possible endings that Joseph (actually Franz) has written for her grandmother Minka’s unfinished story?

So many questions, so little time;-)

Also, I didn’t like Minka's vampire story interweaving through out the book, but then I don't like vampire stories, or any fantasy for that matter. At first I found it to be, while intriguing, often too distracting.

But now looking back I realize that besides being a strong plot step (having Sage's grandmother write a dark horror novel in the real horror of actual evil of German Concentration Camps) it does emphasize many questions as to the nature of humanity and many other themes—
1.good versus evil

2.innocence versus guilt
3.immoral versus moral

4.compassion versus cruelty
5.beauty versus ugliness

6.community versus isolation
7.truth versus deception and lies

8.private versus public
etc.

And, let us not forget, Picoult's powerful prose which included a few aphoristic gems.

Evaluation: A+/C

--
A few of the Zingers:
Sage: “If you end your story, it’s a static work of art, a finite circle. But if you don’t, it belongs to anyone’s imagination. It stays alive forever.” (page 459)
“That’s why we read fiction, isn’t it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we’re not the only ones?” (page 220)

Leo: ”To be forgiven, the person has to be sorry. In Judaism, that’s called tesbuvah. It means ‘turning away from evil.’ It’s not a one-time deal, either. It’s a course of action. A single act of repentance is something that makes the person who committed the evil feel better, but not the person against whom evil was committed…That’s why Jews don’t just go to Confession, and say the rosary.” (page 188)

Sage: “It’s the question mark that comes with death that we can’t face, not the period.” (page 131)
--

Picoult's book is a deep abyss of story, horrific narrative, and philosophical reflection.

Don't miss The Storyteller.

In the Light of History, Truth, and Fiction,

Daniel Wilcox

The Tragic Evil of the Holocaust: Whether to Forgive Nazis?

WATCH: Holocaust Survivor Explains Why She Forgave Dr. Mengele
September 27, 2017 By Aiden Pink

"Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor forgave the Nazis, including Dr. Josef Mengele, who experimented on her.

A Holocaust survivor explained in a video for BuzzFeed that has been watched more than 40 million times why she forgave the Nazi doctor who experimented on her and her twin sister.

Eva Mozes Kor and her family were deported from Romania to Auschwitz in May 1944. She and her twin sister Miriam were saved from death and sent to be experimented upon by Dr. Josef Mengele and his team, who sought to study twins.

Her father, mother, and other siblings were sent to the right, she and her twin to the left, never to see their family again.

She explained how, 50 years later, she met with Dr. Hans Munch, one of the doctors there, who was convinced to sign a document attesting to the veracity of the Auschwitz gas chambers. Mozes Kor also signed a document there forgiving him and all Nazis, and later explained that she had specifically forgiven Mengele."

Eva Mozes Kor: “I felt free, free from Auschwitz, free from Mengele...We cannot change what happened. That is the tragic part. But we can change how we relate to it.”

"While she said that most Holocaust survivors had denounced her, Mozes Kor called it “an act of self-healing, self-liberation, self-empowerment..."

Read more: http://forward.com/fast-forward/383753/watch-holocaust-survivor-explains-why-she-forgave-dr-mengele/




Live in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Welcome Syrian Refugees Say 1,000 American Jewish Rabbis

1,000 American rabbis have responded to the anti-immigration outlook of too many Americans:

"In 1939, our country could not tell the difference between an actual enemy and the victims of an enemy...In 2015, let us not make the same mistake."

"We, Rabbis from across the country, call on our elected officials to exercise moral leadership for the protection of the US Refugee Admissions Program.

Since its founding, the United States has offered refuge and protection to the world’s most vulnerable. Time and time again, those refugees were Jews. Whether they were fleeing pogroms in Tzarist Russia, the horrors of the Holocaust or persecution in Soviet Russia or Iran, our relatives and friends found safety on these shores."

"We are therefore alarmed to see so many politicians declaring their opposition to welcoming refugees.

Last month’s heartbreaking attacks in Paris and Beirut are being cited as reasons to deny entry to people who are themselves victims of terror. And in those comments, we, as Jewish leaders, see one of the darker moments of our history repeating itself.

In 1939, the United States refused to let the SS St. Louis dock in our country, sending over 900 Jewish refugees back to Europe, where many died in concentration camps. That moment was a stain on the history of our country – a tragic decision made in a political climate of deep fear, suspicion and antisemitism.

The Washington Post released public opinion polling from the early 1940’s, showing that the majority of U.S. citizens did not want to welcome Jewish refugees to this country in those years.

In 1939, our country could not tell the difference between an actual enemy and the victims of an enemy. In 2015, let us not make the same mistake.

We therefore urge our elected officials to support refugee resettlement and to oppose any measures that would actually or effectively halt resettlement or prohibit or restrict funding for any groups of refugees."

from http://www.vox.com/world/2015/12/5/9851526/refugees-letter-rabbis



Become a ray of Light for refugees,

Daniel Wilcox

The Horror of God Belief

Sometimes, days are from Hell. This week seems to be the case.

Christians and Muslims are saying some basically obscene things about God.

Think about this blasphemous statement:"But it is going exactly the way God planned it."

WHAT?!

God planned for millions of little children to be raped, abused, murdered...

God planned for the countless slaughters going on now around the world, for the beheading, burning, torturing, raping...

God planned the Jewish Holocaust and the other 4 million non-Jews who died in the Concentration Camps...

The Great War, 10 million dead in the trenches alone...

The U.S.and English Civil Wars...

The Taiping Rebellion...

The 30 Years War...

The Black Death...

The Crusades...

The prophet Muhammad at 50 years of age marrying a 9-year-old girl and beheading 500-900 Jewish young men...


Oh but life "is going exactly the way God planned it."

God planned the tsunami that slaughtered 250,000 Asians in only a few hours a few years ago?

God planned the killing of the little Jewish infant by a Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem several months ago?

God planned every cancer?

God planned every infant born with anencephaly?

God planned every elderly person suffering from severe alzheimer's?


TO HELL WITH THIS VIEW OF THINKING.





Hoping for the Light in this religious world of darkness,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #2: Not Soon...Why So Long?

Almost 2,000 years have passed since Jesus, the Son of Man, said, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48

What a wonderful ethical command, (though so seemingly impossible to live).

But since Jesus told us to become perfect, tragically, the opposite has happened! Down through history, many Christian leaders have so perverted and twisted what Jesus said and how he lived.

They act contrary to Jesus' words of compassion, mercy, and peacemaking, often even claim God calls them to slaughter, enslave, persecute, torture, lie and steal!

From the Crusades, through the wars of religion of the 16th century, to the “Christian” 30 Years War, and downward to this present day, Christians continue to go forth to war in Jesus' name.

In response to many Muslims claiming Allah is on their side, many American soldiers are claiming the Christian God is on our side; some Americans even use weapons engraved with Bible verses to kill Muslims in Afghanistan.

Is this praying or preying?!

Where is this so-called arc of the moral universe?! Where is the realm of God that Jesus promised?

Even if we manage to close out the human world’s dark night of destructive action, there’s always the suffering of natural evil everywhere and endless through the centuries--famine, natural disaster, and disease.

Thousands of little children die daily right now for want of nourishment and vaccination. These innocent children could easily be saved with only a tiny portion of the billion-dollar'd weapons budget of the United States alone!

Where is the arc of the moral universe?

But notice the quote again--the famous statement emphasizes that “the arc of the moral universe is LONG…”

Evil hasn't been defeated quickly. Its horrendous dominance has lasted for many thousands of years.

The great quote comes originally from a speech by the Christian leader Theodore Parker in the mid 19th century:

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience.”
Theodore Parker, 1853, “Of Justice and the Conscience”

Parker wrote this during the tragic time leading up to the horrific slaughter of the American War Between the States, where nearly a million humans died, and millions more suffered for a generation!

The arc of the moral universe is very LONG…

Tragically, the situation of most people, especially Negroes, was often worse after the American war than before!*
Think about that.

True, “legal slavery,” had ended, but the actual living conditions for most Negroes after the war grew worse during Reconstruction and on into the new century. Discrimination, oppression, persecution, even lynchings occurred regularly.

Don't forget so-called "sundown towns."

On the outskirts of Hawthorne, California in 1930s stood a sign:
"Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Set On YOU In Hawthorne.”

There were hundreds of such racist towns throughout the United States, both north and south.

And this only speaks of the evil of racial prejudice.
Think of all the other evils including the slaughter of over 10 million humans in the Great War, then over 50 million in World War 2, and the Holocaust.

What a great demonic ocean of darkness…

Where is God? Where is the Chosen One?

Where is this improving “moral arc”?


To Be Continued

Daniel Wilcox

When Jesus Is a Hard Atheist...

…when “God” has “decreed sin should enter this world through the disobedience of our first parents” that this “was a secret hid in His own breast.” (A.W. Pink, Christian author of the popular book, The Sovereignty of God sold at Calvary Chapels and many other Christian churches:-(

*“…the holocaust of World War II, suicide bombers etc. Indeed every sin against God's commandments, God ordains to His greatest glory…God has ordained it to come to pass, so we must conclude that this is because His greatest glory can only be served by its presence…God ordained this [Adam’s sin], as He knew it would be to His greatest glory in the end. (Presbyterian Website)

What a false god!

Jesus is a hard Atheist of A.W. Pink’s and the Presbyterians’ god.

For Jesus said, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5: 48 ESV

The only true GOD is perfect and would NEVER “ordain/order/appoint/decree/establish/foreordain” sin, evil,

NOR

does GOD ever do anything for himself! God IS love (I Corinthians 13).

The GOD of Jesus is perfect love, perfect goodness, perfect truth, perfect justice, perfect mercy, perfect holiness, perfect glory—perfection infinitely.

As the New Testament emphasizes, GOD does, in response to us humans’ free choice to choose contrary to His perfect will, bring goodness out of evil.

But GOD is never the original “ordainer” of sin and evil, never.

Jesus is a hard Atheist toward A.W. Pink’s god.

To be continued...

In the Light of the ONLY TRUE GOD,

Daniel Wilcox

Good Friday?

Isn’t that like saying Good Assassination?

Good Murder?

Good Holocaust?!

Yes. This is so as the Jewish writer and Holocaust-survivor Elie Wiesel so powerfully and cogently demonstrates in one excruciating story in his memoir of the Holocaust—Night.*


How can there be good-evil?

Yes what an oxymoron.

What a contradiction and ethical absurdity where human grieving never ceases.

At first, all of this may seem like past history. Most people know about the Shoah (Holocaust). And many probably have heard of "Good Friday" since it still occurs on calendars. But nowadays most people put little focus on history unless forced to do so, and most work or study or spring-break party right through “Good Friday,” unless they are devoutly liturgical in their religion.

Years ago back in the 1950’s in the Midwest, all religious people commemorated the special Friday, and many attended very long services. I remember as kid sitting through 3-4 hour services where 4-5 ministers took turns preaching on and on. But that was then, this is now.

Looking back on that yearly event now seems very strange: how those religious leaders taught us about the torture and execution of a Jewish leader by the Romans 2000 years ago and why it was vitally important to us, even elementary children.

Even more baffling—at least to everyone not convinced of the Christian faith—is why speak to the general populace in the present of such a capital punishment by ancient governing authorities so long ago? And why claim this execution has anything, indeed everything, to do with humans today?

Last and most incomprehensible of all, why claim that this execution is “good”?!

How can moral evil, especially when conducted by civilization’s leaders ever be considered “good”?

How as human beings can we ever deal with moral atrocities—so many horrendous massacres throughout blood-gushed/disgusting history?

This is the beginning of the philosophical and ethical question that Elie Wiesel asked in his book Night, speaking of the murder of so many by the Nazi death camps including his father, mother, and sister:

“Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”

Then Wiesel tells the story of a young boy executed by the Nazis:
"The three victims mounted together onto the chairs. The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses. ‘Long live Liberty!’ cried the adults. But the child was silent.

"'Where is God? Where is He?’ someone behind me asked. At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over. Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting.

"'Bare your heads!' yelled the head of the camp. His voice was raucous. We were weeping. ‘Cover your heads!’ Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive..."

"For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet glazed."

"Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is — He is hanging here on this gallows'"

"Where is God? Where is He?"

And I heard a voice within me answer him: "Where is He? Here He is — He is hanging here on this gallows..."


To be continued

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The “Fingers of God,” the Jesus of the “Twisted" Winds

"Jesus rules the wind. The tornadoes were his."
John Piper

News from a famous, highly praised, Christian leader
after the tragic tornadoes this past month:
“Why would God reach down his hand and drag his fierce fingers
across rural America killing
at least 38 people with 90 tornadoes in 12 states, and leaving some small towns
with scarcely a building standing, including churches?"

"..God alone has the last say in where and how the wind blows.
If a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground
like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles,
God gave the command..."

"Jesus rules the wind. The tornadoes were his.”
John Piper

Whew! No wonder there are more and more outspoken atheists.

Piper does go on to say that “before Jesus took any life in rural American, he gave how own on the rugged cross.” Of course, as Piper has made starkly clear in the past, Jesus gave his life only for a limited number of humans. All other humans throughout history were foreordained to eternal torture.

As one blogger, pointed out, such Christianity is “twisted.” (http://loveradically.com/2012/03/05/john-piper-twisted-theology-on-twisters/

No wonder that many people are saying that Christianity’s god is a moral monster.

Though this "twisted" theology isn’t near as evil as other horrific claims by current Christian leaders which include the assertions that the Holocaust, and every rape and murder and molestation, happen for "God’s glory" and "good pleasure"!

"God not merely carries all of the universe’s objects and events to their appointed ends, but he actually brings about all things in accordance with his will."

"In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him;
it is rather
that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory..."

"This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may
currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau."
John Piper, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God


The theologian William Barclay’s response
to such Christian views was “Your God is my devil."

"Your God is the God I don’t believe in.”

Oh Father, please help us to persevere in this hellish time of complete theological darkness!

Daniel Wilcox

Encountering Jesus Part #1

Jesus said, Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God..Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. NIV Luke 12:6-7

These loving words mean so much--that God cares even for the sparrows and so very much for all humans, every single unique individual who has ever lived.

Indeed this may be the central reason to be a theist--to have deep hope for all people we meet now, and hope for all the millions lost in wrong harmful ways in this life. And hope especially for all past humans who so terribly suffered and died in the Holocaust, the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia and Turkey, the pestilences of the Black Plague, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and cancer; the tragic loss of life in the tsunami in Indonesia, and endless death from other forms of havoc and evil in the past, and the multi-millions who suffer abuse and die so young in childhood...

NONE OF THEM HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING if somehow all will be made good.

There is not the despair as in a nontheistic cosmos where ruthless determinism or chance rules.

No!

We have God's Yes--Faith, hope, and love are eternal:-)

For those millions of humans and all others, and even countless lesser creatures--they all are loved by God and cared for living within God, and as the NT says, and many people of faith have trusted, God will bring all into the loving realm of total goodness and blessedness in the end.

That, dear Friends, is the Good News, the Glad Tidings, the Ocean of Light--God IS and loves us deeply and endlessly:-)

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

The Love of God
by Frederick M. Lehman and
Meir Ben Isaac (from his Jewish
poem Hadamut written in Aramic
in 1050 A.D.)

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Refrain


Next in part 2 we will look at the rest of the Luke passage.

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox