The storm and open door

One of the difficulties of hurricanes is the fact that it is still windy and raining and it is wet! I am not really able to get some exercise walking and the gym is not open because the roads are bad.  Last night we went to have dinner at some friends and the wind caught the umbrella and turned it inside out- just like a Mack Sennett silent slapstick bit. I have it easy compared to so many others but I am so used to a routine- dare I say a rut - but my weight depends on burning as many calories as I consume  and my work is deeply sedentary - either at my desk writing or studying or sitting talking with people or listening or being in meetings.  And what do I do for fun- I read or watch movies!

 Right now I am looking at the door leading down to the garage. When the wind pressure changes  with a gust of wind from the hurricane the door opens. The door does not latch properly and it got me thinking about how Harold Pinter said he would write a play- starting off with a person in a room and a door.  The play develops- indeed life develops - over the choices made in response to the room and the door and whoever might come through the door

We are free to make all of the choices in our lives- I am not a "victim" of the storm rather I live within it and make choices in response to the storm that metaphorically comes in through the door. Sartre said, “We are alone, with no excuses. That is the idea I shall try to convey when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”
 
 In this "thrown-ness" in which we find ourselves, I depart from Sartre and say that I am not fully alone for there is the spirit of the divine with, and within, me. I reject the idea that God is a big B F Skinner in the sky, a hideous deity, who forces the "Divine Will" on all events- an idea which passes for Christianity in modern evangelical thought  i.e. the politician who finds God's will in a pregnancy from a rape. The center of this theology is our love of "power" and we create a God in our own image where God is the all powerful image of what we want to be.

I would suggest that the center of our theology is not God as power but God as love. Bad things happen in this world which has nothing to do with God's plan- we in freedom make choices. It is how we respond to the bad things that happen with choices that makes the differences in our lives. In my Christianity the choices come from my prayers for illumination through the spirit which God has given me, and I have chosen to develop, to make the choices which  which help me to seek justice and mercy as the result of my choices and I ask for strength to follow through on those choices. I see the incarnation,cross and resurrection as the core of my faith- God loved and emptied Godself out to become human out of love and out of love redeems all choices we make.

The collect (prayer) for this last Sunday was  reworked by the Rev. Bosco Peters in New Zealand as
Almighty everliving God,
increase within us your gifts of faith, hope, and love,
and make us cherish what you command,
so that we may obtain what you promise;
through Jesus Christ
who is alive with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.

I like that reworking because in front of every door in my choices I pray that I will find Christ within me.  There is a song by Jacques Brel which haunts me - My Death  which has as a refrain


But whatever lies behind the door
there is nothing much to do...
angel or devil, I don't care
for in front of that door...
there is you.