Dreaming of Silver Roses

Meister Eckhart wrote, "God is at home. We are in the far country." ... 

"It (the quote by Eckhart) expressed so simply the way I feel about life on this

 earth, and my heart resounded with the truth of it," recalls Peterson. "I loved 

the way it turned my thinking on its end; we usually think of Heaven as the far 

country, a cloudy, ethereal place, an eternal church service, which sounds about

 as appealing as traffic school. C.S. Lewis said that all of our desires, for acceptance,

 intimacy, rest, work, satisfaction, beauty are, at their root, desires for heaven." 

- Andrew Peterson

I often forget I am an alien. All my senses and views of life have been changed. 

I forget until something I consider unfair happens. Then something quiet inside my

 heart cries out for a higher sense of justice like Dostoyevsky’s youngest Karamazov

 brother, Alyosha,  I am likely to say,. "I am not rebelling against my God; I simply don't

 accept His world."  I have my son, Mat, often say, “It’s not fair!” with such fierce verve

 and conviction that I can predict by his face when that famous line is coming.

But essentially Mat’s right. It’s not a fair world. Now Mat often means “by my sense 

of how things should be according to my wants right now, it isn’t working. It’s out of 

my control to call the shots.”

      

The trouble is, in an alien land, all the rules are subject to the one given authority. 

God has not been given authority yet over all the will of all mankind, so justice is

conditional on what the individual thinks. Every man acts upon  what he deems 

as fair usually according to his own best interest. (At least until that man gives

Christ is due authority.)

This life is never going to be fair or just. And do we really want fairness or justice?

Who gets to determine what is fair or just. It reminds me of a scene from Jim Henson’s

 movie, Labyrinth. Jareth, the goblin king, adjusts the time so that Sarah has less after 

she smarts off at him about how easy solving the maze is.      

      

Sarah: That's not fair!      

 Jareth: You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is?   

To imply that there is an intrinsic sense of fairness implies that there is One who 

is just and fair. There is a standard to measure by. C.S. Lewis uses this argument in

Mere Christianity.      

      

 The Newsboys define mercy in their song, Real Good Thing, by saying “when 

we don’t get what we deserve.” I have to remember His sense of justice cost the 

life of His own Son. The flip side of justice however is mercy and mercy is expensive.

Filed under: Christianity, life on February 26th, 2008