Thursday, April 26, 2012

No Writing?

Why did not Jesus write things down like the prophets did? Well, how much do you remember of what you read, especially if it is challenging you to live in a way that you find rather inconvenient? I forget a lot of what I read. Students cram for an exam and then forget. But you never forget an experience, a profound experience. You may deny the experience, but you will not forget it. So Jesus appeared to his disciples and gave them a simple message. Their early speeches were the interpretation of their experience of the Risen Jesus. In the gospel, Jesus says come to me, and believe. First, you have to accept that your experience is really about God in your life. First, you have to "come" to the experience. Then faith will follow. Some people deny that their religious experience has anything to do with "God". Why? One reason is that a wondrous experience of nature taken as just that and nothing more, might invite you to take more such walks or hikes, but not to change your life in any other radical sense. You can still go on nature hikes, have a powerful experience, deny that God is any part of it, and go on being selfish, petty, and narcissistic. If you accept that God was the experience, hidden in nature, then you might begin to pursue who and what this God is. Then you will have to change your life. Let's face it. Non-belief is so much easier a way to live for many of us.

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