Our Weekly Meditation
“God, I believe, likes us to struggle with God,” says Brother Geoffrey Tristram of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist. “For that is how we grow.”
Rabbi Abraham Heschel, meanwhile, once said that what God revealed to Israel throughout history is the “bold and dangerously paradoxical idea” that God needs human beings.
For me, these two radical thoughts have one thing in common: God wants us to be in relationship with God – struggling, questioning, laughing, crying, demanding, rejoicing, weeping.
I think of Job, who angrily demanded answers from God — and got them. I also think of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, who in almost every scene will look to the sky to laugh, cajole, question or complain to his God.
More often than not, when I find myself in the middle of a convoluted prayer of my own making, I throw up my hands (thank you, Tevye) and say aloud, “Oh, the heck with it, God. Here’s the deal. I’m unhappy about this or that, and I want to know why…”
Sure, answers don’t come right away. But I feel like I’m in relationship. And that feels very, very good.
Pete Taft