I have come to believe that for me, for my Grandma Moses-like spiritual growth (i.e., stick figures and primary colors), "God Calling" is the deepest spiritual book I will ever read. The fact that the book is so simple and straightforward...no frills, no fancy-schmancy...is what makes it a spiritual rarity. In its simplicity I missed its depth for way too long.
I felt poleaxed when I finally recognized first that, second why, his directions to "love and laugh" are on so many pages. I had always read them as if they were throw-away lines...fillers if you will. Then with one blinding flash of the obvious I realized those words as the entire directions for living a life of peace, love and joy...impersonal love and impersonal laughter are God's love incarnate.
We will never avoid rues, regrets and remorses...if we're doing it right. Once we've accepted that living by God's will is better than living by our own will, and then trying to do God's will, we tend to believe we have our guarantee for a regret-free life. God loves us way too much for that.
It is "when wrong" that we give our self the opportunity to learn...to learn how to agree with our adversary quickly, to turn the other cheek, to resist not evil. And that gives God his opportunity to laugh...in joy at our learning.
I love pondering God loving me through laughter...like, for instance, if it weren't for humans, God wouldn't have any laughs at all. Maybe "the human condition" is just fancy talk for "God's laugh track." Maybe our sole, singular, one and only purpose on this earth is to give God laughs. And there it is...the way to love our rues, regrets and remorses! We're giving God a giggle! How loving is that?
Thank you.
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