Grace and Vulnerability

I am not sure if I've written on my latest epiphany on Grace and God's goodness. It's easy to think that God doesn't care - else why would there be suffering? Yet, I think this misses the point of original sin. We have free will, which includes the will to be greedy. The will to cater to our basest desires rather than our highest. The will to be selfish and take what rightfully belongs to others.

There is enough food, shelter, warmth and clothing to go around but we, not God, we choose to hoard these things. We choose to exploit other nations and people. We choose to put those with dark skin in ghettoes of our making - not theirs. Then we blame them because they protest. Or they attack us. But we, we are to blame. Every time we choose to not look or not listen to the truth. And we are all guilty. I think this is what Thomas Merton meant.

God provides enough; we hoard and hurt others out of fear and lack of trust. We are vulnerable and do not like the feeling so we make ourselves less vulnerable at the expense of others. I am feeling this vulnerability now. We spent a lot of money getting our apartment ready to have others move in. Then they chose not to. So we are strapped and unsure what comes next. We have decided to move to Cleveland, yet we need to make sure we have shelter and jobs. That takes money.

We will be talking about it tomorrow. I will be focusing today on abundance. God's gracious abundance. And grace. For each other and for others. How can we continue to be generous when it feels we do not have enough?