Love in an imperfect world

Kenneth Aldous considers the message of Jesus

What can I say? When asked to give a talk to our Local Meeting, my initial response to the question was, ‘not much’. The most I can say is that there have been occasions when I have experienced a sense of unity with loved ones and nature, which have passed over, in time, like a gentle breeze.

But there are wider issues that stand in the way. Human nature is a source for both good and bad and I have not found that spirituality is a necessary prerequisite for kindness or compassion. In everyday life I constantly come across kind and considerate people who have no religious pretensions.

I have a particular problem with those forms of Christianity that separate believers from nonbelievers. It seems that, within a generation or so after the death of Jesus, many of those who did not conform to the dominant doctrine were classed as heretical outcasts and, consequently, numerous breakaway sects grew up.

The reason for this may be in the way that, from its early days, Christianity focussed on beliefs about the nature of Jesus rather than on his message to us. Instead of looking at what Jesus had to say, the creeds are all about his birth, death, resurrection and ascension, which for most people have little relevance for everyday life. ‘Why do you call me “Lord, Lord,” but do not the things that I say’ (Luke 6:46) indicates that he wished to be followed rather than worshipped.

The world today does not need religions that divide. It needs a faith and way of life that will draw all men and women closer to one another. The message of Jesus can be summed up in one word, ‘Love’. Not the love of sentimentality built on sand, but a kind of pragmatism built on a rock because it cherishes that of God within us. It is the love like that of a father who welcomes home a wayward son. It is the love of Jesus for the outcast and the oppressed. To love our enemies goes beyond the inherent kindness in our relations with our neighbours; it takes us beyond our natural inclinations into a deeper level that realises that we are all in it together.

Within this dimension, things are turned upside down. In the whole of human history there is probably no one who has had a greater impact than Jesus. Yet his message was mostly about how the small and insignificant are valued. It is about being open to guidance and caring for others in our daily activities.

It would be nice to be able to end there, on a high spiritual and ethical plain. But that sceptical part of me asks: ‘Would it not be more realistic to accept that the world is imperfect and life is grossly unfair and just make the most of it?’ It would avoid having to come to terms with the dilemma of trying to equate a loving God with the intrinsic immensity of suffering throughout the ages.

The trouble is that when materialism looks for fulfilment through exploiting people and the world’s resources it accentuates, rather than resolves, the dilemma. So, I have to come back to the issue: How can I reconcile a God of love with the millions of years when creatures red in tooth and claw, and later human strife, have dominated this planet?

Surprisingly, it is science that, in our time, is pointing to a wider perspective of creation in which they and we may stand in awe at its wonder. There is, in the universe, a vast matrix of processes within matter, time and space that has produced at least one small planet, among billions, where life has been created and is sustained. Through evolution we humans, as a species, have risen to a level of self consciousness that enables us to reason, appreciate beauty and have moral values; but there is no reason to believe that evolution stops there.

With the use of reason and technology, scientific enquiries are taking us to the outer fringe of that which cannot be measured and, at the moment, scientists can only speculate over what lies beyond. However, if there is a higher dimension within which we live, move and have our being, may it not be akin to that which Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven? We sense that there is a true home, to which we belong and into which we may enter and be welcomed and valued?

Within this context we must acknowledge the limitations of our human knowledge. It may be that the sufferings of the past and present are a necessary prerequisite to a process toward a form of fulfilment which can be understood only through experience.

Our brains have incredible mechanisms that enable us to adapt to environmental stimuli, but, in addition, we have the gift of free will that gives us the power to respond to that persistent, gracious calling. It requires that we let go of those restrictive attachments which hold us back, so that we may be free to follow a path along an opened road.

It leaves each of us with another question: ‘What is holding me back?’

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Comments

I am working on Karen Armstrong’s 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life. It is drawing together for me many things I’ve read and heard about since I was 15 and started to ponder such things. At last, at 65, I am seeing the point of more regular practise and discipline, to clear a way through what is holding me back. The further steps are to do with me as part of us.

By Chattell on 13th January 2012 - 10:09

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