Sabbath Messages > Sabbath Message: April 29, 2006
Good Sabbath
April 29, 2006
"May they who observe the Sabbath and call it a delight, rejoice in Thy kingdom."
As Tally Jarratt prepares for his journey to heaven, for heaven was created by God for special people; special people like Jane Jacobs, who rattled the thrones of self-elevated egos, who create mounds out of intellectual molehills, so they can rise above mere mortals. Jane Jacobs wrote "The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961); without college, but blessed with senses that were gifted with the wisdom of observation and common sense, captivated my youth and my evolving profession.
Tally, about whom I shall write next week, was blessed with a love of God and people and was a credit to both. God's blessing was Lillian, Tally's superb life companion. She bumped into Frances and me yesterday and we knew at once that she was already adapting to life without her life's love, that exquisite dimension of meaningful fulfillment, her tears washed away all but memory.
I read reviews of United 93, the movie that grabs your heart and shocks your mind, wondering how religion could drive so deep a chasm between humankind and God. In "The End of Faith", by Sam Harris--a potentially great book--exploring the same subject, is my slow read for this month. He writes: "every religion preaches the truth of propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable", the fact remains that it divides us from each other, rather than uniting us and that is a tragedy that is reaching the point where one person, devout in his intolerance of any other human, can kill millions with one bomb or assortment of germs.
The only defense humankind has is the rule of gold that reduces separation into togetherness and I believe in it with all my heart and soul and mind! As I watch my wonderful country lurch from blunder to blunder, "brought on by a value system that prizes loyalty and personal connections over competence, can quickly reduce the government of the world's most powerful nation to third-world levels of ineffectiveness."(Paul Krugman)
My feeling is that love of God is based upon an earned faith, rather than memorizing text, that we are human when we care, we are godlike when we reach out to friends and neighbors.
"God is the poet of the world with tender patience leading it by His vision of truth, beauty and goodness." (Alfred North Whitehead).
As we say our goodbyes to loved ones who deserve our memory of their kindness and humanity, celebrate what they brought to your life and spread that memory to all who need inspiration. We need not be famous to be remembered nor revered. We need only to be wonderfully human.
sandy
