Sabbath Messages | Sabbath Message: July 17, 2004
Good Sabbath
July 17, 2004 Rejoice not when your enemy falls and let your heart not be glad when he stumbles. (Proverbs 24:17)
What is religion? A mostly theoretical memorization of noble causes quickly forgotten? The beauty of Golden Rule in everything except in your neighborhood and in politics? When is hate forgivable? When it is the political cause of the day or era? Do you get my point? Is it possible to love peace, to pursue justice or are those the definition of a fool?
"To forgive oneself"? No that doesn't work; we have to be forgiven. But we can only believe that this is possible if we ourselves can forgive." (Dag Hammarskjold)
Last week. my doctor replaced my cataract. What a miracle! Now I will be at 20/20 or closeby. Now I shall see clearly for the first time since childhood. Yet others who are totally blind will see more clearly than I. What miracle is this that can get rid of cloudy cataract but leave the mind blind to the good of others or injustice, wherever it may be? We are a strange lot, we humans, when we can find more comfort in the lick of a pet cat or dog than the friendship of a human neighbor. Politics joins religion in further dividing us from neighbors, easily accepting them as the enemy rather than Golden Ruled neighbors. As we've approached more miracles of high-technology, our prisms cause us the awful blindness of intolerance, political expediency, and ignorance of injustice.
How long does it take to stop the slaughter of humans in Africa? When is that moment when we've had enough, cry out to God for relief, and help stop slaughter? When are we truly educated, truly wise, truly kind? Do we evaluate what's in it for ourselves before we stop the tyrant, before the tyrant turns his attention on ourselves?
We humans are puny and yet magnificent in our possibilities. We can see clearly, for the heart can have perfect vision as it constructs our souls. You are golden, my neighbor, whatever your political party or religion. Love has no geographic limits. Its reach is forever and even beyond our vision, if we only care enough.There are more miracles done without surgery than with. The primary operation has to include attitudes towards tyranny and injustice, and the clarity will replace stupidity and blind obedience.
Be magnificent this Sabbath; get your heart and soul into this day and you will have found God, again.
sandy
