Yeah, but...

I don't think that most of my friends would argue with the statement above, but I have a "Yeah, but..." reaction to it that I want to share. 

God has many qualities and attributes, or we give God many qualities and attributes, but kindness and love are two among many. In another post I borrowed from Gregory MacDonald's book The Evangelical Universalist in reminding that God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent and then went beyond MacDonald to remind that Muslims have 99 names for God that describe God's qualities and that this is something for Christians to take into ourselves.

Perhaps it is true for many of us that in reacting to upbringings in which we were told only of an angry God who dwelt in retributive justice, or in trying to make a living in a hierarchical and competitive society as adults, that we overreact by taking an opposite position if we go on as believers at all. Many of us over-emphasize or particularize a God of love. This has started to feel to me as presumptuous and as imposing my will and definition on God.

Let's consider that kindness and love are excellent qualities to have and that they come from God and are parts of our experience in heaven on earth right now and today, but let's also look at a wider picture and recall that God has other qualities as well and that these also show up in our lives.

And what if you're not kind and loving and can't manage grace or giving grace? Are you really outside of "the theology of Jesus"? Is that a bad and dooming thing?

Well, please try to be kind and loving and about giving grace, and please pray for me because I'm terrible at doing those things. Remember through your struggles (and your prayers for me) that God will come looking for you when you inevitably miss the mark. You're going to be okay. You're going to have some hell for yourself and others, but the Holy Spirit is "everywhere and fillest all things; Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life" and She will come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls" with our fervent prayer.

Those who have strayed were sought by the master
He who once gave his life for the sheep.
Out on a mountain still He is searching
Bringing them in forever to keep.

Here is something that I do to get myself on the road going to being kind and loving and giving grace. If I can remember to do it, in that moment before I'm angry at someone or being unkind to them I say silently to myself "You are blessed and you are beautiful!" and direct that thought at them and then, sometimes, at me as well. Sometimes I just look around me and direct that to the people going about their business. 

Maybe much of the time I don't feel this or mean this when I whisper it to myself. Someone may cut me off in traffic or in a line or cause me offense. My first thought is not to be kind. Maybe my second thought isn't, either. I may not mean "You are blessed and you are beautiful!" if I even get it out in those moments. So what? It's still a good habit to develop and your heart will mean it if your mind doesn't. Sooner or later, if kindness and love are given to you as gifts to pass on with grace, you will likely mean it. All of you will mean it.

Doing this is a little like doing the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm. Don't force it, do it in the contexts of your relationship to the world and with God, let your heart learn it and do it. The "theology of Jesus" will come as a gift or you will get other gifts or you will realize that you have had gifts all along and be happy with those.