Christianity

More or Less Blessed

~ Mormon Mouse ~ Leave a comment

More or Less Blessed
Is it really more blessed to give than receive?
Jesus thought so, so that’s fine to believe.
But the problem with that, if you ask me,
is it makes giving something we should all try to get,
And getting a thing about which to fret.
It forces spontaneous virtue to be,
and makes Heaven a place that just isn’t free.

The thing about giving that nobody notes
(perhaps they are too busy looking for motes),
is although it is great to give things away 
(so great you should try to give things each day),
there’s no way to get this giving to do,
without someone there to receive it from you.

You can’t be more blessed 
(And someone blessed less),
without someone to take what you’re giving,
so if it wasn’t for them, you could get no gem, 
no pearl of great price for good living.

Givers and Getters, neither is better,
if you have to have both for the blessing.
So they both can be great, and share the same fate,
or else who will you give to in Heaven?

—Saint Andrew of Snohomish

The Revelation of Saint Andrew of Snohomish – Resurrected People

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Resurrected People
If that which has beginning
Must also have an end,
Then resurrected people
Will have to die again.

We cannot live forever
No matter how we try,
Since nothing starts to live
If it cannot stop to die.

For life must crest and trough
In a never-ending wave,
Ever flowing onward
And impossible to save.

The only thing eternal
Is the changing of it all,
And the rising of what is,
That comes from every fall.

You Must Love Me

~ Mormon Mouse ~ Leave a comment

I think that a man who must command everyone to love him, and then punish them if they do not, is afraid that he is unlovable. Why should a God be any different?

And if the God who declares you must love him is afraid he is unlovable, then he is not all-knowing in the traditional sense, as what would be the point of commanding people to love you if you already know if they do or do not and if they will or not?

I would think that an all-knowing God would also know that people cannot make themselves love someone they don’t love any better than they can laugh at a joke they don’t find funny, or enjoy eating food that they find distasteful.

Or, what if it’s true and we all really must love God after all? What kind of God takes any pleasure in being loved by those who love him under his own command rather than of their own free will and pleasure? The Church loves to spend lots of time talking about free agency, and what a wonderful gift it is from our Heavenly Father, but much less time talking about what we are commanded to do with it freely.

As Alan Watts has pointed out, and I’m paraphrasing him here, we are caught in a kind of double-bind if we are required to do that which will only be acceptable if we do it voluntarily.