WILL
AND GRACE
June 23, 2004
presented at the closing of the Healing Service, Six-Day 2004
I can’t even begin to imagine how many thoughts were running through the 75 or so heads that just spent an hour in silence. Certainly there were some loving thoughts, some angry thoughts, some desperate thoughts, some joyful thoughts. Many prayers were spoken. The people we thought about include the living and the dead, the faraway and the near, those we love and those we don’t want to stop hating.
Now put all that aside for a moment and think about God. Think of God as an artist painting a canvas. The canvas is the entire history of the universe and all of time, past, present, and future. But God doesn’t paint alone. God has created innumerable fellow painters and turned us loose on the canvas. We don’t really know how to paint, but God asks us to help anyway.
Sometimes one of us will paint something magnificent, only to find that someone else has come along and painted something ugly right next to it. It’s really not fair. Why didn’t God just paint the whole thing and then create us to look at it and admire it? Why do we have to be in it, and how can God let us screw it up so badly?
We say that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-present. God can see the future, right? God can stop bad things from happening, right? God is everywhere, right? Then why is everything such a mess?
Yes, God could see the future. But God has decided to let us create the future instead.
Yes, God could stop bad things from happening, but God would rather have us learn to do good things.
Yes, God could be everywhere. But God has decided to let us inhabit our own space, and not to trespass unless we invite God in.
We are co-creators with God. We decide what will happen in the future, and God rolls with the changes. When we paint something ugly, God says, “Hmmm … let’s see what we can do with that.” And then God helps us incorporate the ugly parts and paint around them, so that the overall effect is beautiful and complex. Everything we paint is final and cannot be painted over, but God is the Great Artist who knows how to work with everything we paint.
We know how to do good, and we know how to do evil. There’s no point in wondering, “Am I good?” or “Am I evil?” because we are fully capable of both. If God had created us unable to do evil, we would never understand what good is. God wants us to learn what is good and then to want to do it simply because it is good.
God respects our individuality. God will not stop us from doing what we decide to do. But when we decide to allow God to paint with us, amazing things start happening.
Some people even get a chance to see a big chunk of the canvas during their lives. Wise people, poets, mystics, saints—these people really appreciate the whole project. Most of us don’t get this chance, but maybe we’re lucky enough to get an idea about it. We’re in the canvas, so it’s hard to get a good perspective.
Maybe death is the end of our time in the canvas. Maybe that’s when we put down our paintbrushes and step outside of the project. We take a few steps back and look at this incredible work of art—an infinite and eternal work of art which we all helped paint.
Our free will is God’s gift to us, a gift intended for us to learn from. God’s grace is another gift—it’s God’s way of rolling with the changes, so that the parts we thought didn’t make any sense start to fall into place.
Now, let’s get one thing straight: Our pain is not trivial to God. It’s not just another tiny part of the canvas. God is all-encompassing, but God feels every bit of our pain right along with us. That pain really hurts.
But the joy? Oh, the joy! Imagine, if you can, a joy so immense that it envelops our deepest pain, no matter how horrible, and without ever really getting rid of it, puts it into perspective in a way that makes everything in our lives worthwhile.
Can you imagine it? I think I can … just barely. And the more joyfully I paint my life, the closer I get to understanding the infinite joy God has asked us to help create.