| My Dear brothers and sisters of Our lord, | |
I guess that I could begin to address what troubling times we live in, but the reality is that throughout human history, even in the best of times, we have still lived in troubling times. So, therefore let us slant the perspective in favor of the lens that our God sees things through.
Imagine the world in which we live were a giant aquarium, and life on earth were the creatures within it. As owner (caretaker) of the aquarium, we would provide food, water, infrastructure, indeed everything that was necessary for the world inside the tank.
However, the creatures would have free agency, just as we humans do. We would not be able to completely control their lives. If one particular fish picked on another, we might not be able to intervene each and every time. Our aquarium is a big place. Our fish would expect us to have total control, but if we did they would not be free to choose to do good or evil on their own. Our fish are here to learn something. Not just to exist. A fly also lives. How much more so do we humans?
Our fish must cooperate in helping us tend to our/their aquarium. In doing so they cooperate in the ongoing creation of their/our world that is ever expanding with the universe, thus helping to create and maintain the world in which we, with God, coexist. Like the aquarium being in our living room, our world is in God's house. We live with God! Even if we choose to not believe that he exists, we still live with God. This statement is an atheist's nightmare, because they have no way to counter it. They might not choose to believe in God, but our God choses to believe in them... Whether they like it or not... And he forgives when we allow him to forgive. Yes, we cooperate in our forgiveness too.
When we look at responsibility and partnership our fish have with us, in other words, that we have with our Lord God in our world as humans, we see that we are co-authors of the planet, its environment, and what happens on the large scale of human sufferings and the relief of human sufferings. When we fall short of cooperating with God, when we fail to do what is right and just, there is a now almost archaic word for it: Sin.
Faithfully Yours In Christ,
+ Mar Laurentius
Patriarch
