You're asking me if my congregation feels it? I would say a little. Wherever you have people come together in a common worship there has to be some love. Some feel it more than others. But church is no love fest, nor should it be.
Why not? Why can't we all be madly in love with each other! Isn't that what the kindom of God is supposed to be, a love fest?
You make the kingdom sound like some 60's orgy. You and I both grew up at the tail end of the sixties. You know that did not work!
It didn't work because the state didn't tolerate it. Too much free love can undermine commerce and our willingness to go kill someone we don't know halfway around the world.
A typical sixties mentality to blame everything on "the system!" I am sure that there were other reasons, too, internal to the movement. Such profligacy cannot be sustained. There is love, but there is also the Law. All behavior has to circumscribed in some way, otherwise it would be sheer mayhem, the rule of the strongest, might making right. The individual ego has to be checked, otherwise it thinks itself divine.
Love and the law, can they be ever reconciled?
Of course they can! Within the law, marriage, great love is possible.
This woman I fell madly in love with was married! So much for the law! It created tremendous tension in myself but I could not help it. It was too good. It did not last, probably because of the law. Why wouldn't God be one hundred percent behind any love affair? I truly felt I was living in the kingdom.
You said yourself you lost touch with God at that time.
Because of the law! I was making a choice and hoping for forgiveness afterwards.
Having your cake and eating it too!
I remember clearly it was a decision. The honest thing for me to do was to act on my desire, my passion.
That's okay! We are allowed to make mistakes. We have a forgiving God. After Jenny left I felt a real loss. I realized how much I loved her, perhaps too much. It was too much about my need to love and be loved. Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention to God and to her. I thought I was. I was a good minister, after all, doing my duty. I became totally dependent on her! She became my crutch. I am sure she found that wearing. Now I am being asked to walk on my own two feet.
So, how is it going?
It is hard, but I am finding tremendous solace in Jesus Christ. He has become the focus of my passion and desire, and is transforming it. I see now that desire misplaced is sin. The Buddhists certainly see it in that way. Jesus takes that inordinate desire upon himself, dies with it, and rises up liberating us from infatuation in order to love more freely and indiscriminately.
An interesting theology, Nort! Here is my hotel. Thank you for walking with me. I really enjoyed this conversation. Indeed, it has been truly revelatory! I have not really had the opportunity to talk about all these things before. Thank you!
I feel the same way, Tad! Thank you for looking me up and dropping by. You came at the right moment. This conversation definitely needs to be continued.
It most certainly will! Good night Nort.
Good night, Tad!
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