When the earth shakes, we all become Quakers
Pretty much everyone I know in Christchurch has been connecting with people because of the earthquake & aftershocks. Family and friends around NZ and overseas, sometimes with strangers, or barely acquaintances with whom in other cases it would be strange to converse.
I thought of people I'd met on LiveJournal, as well as other 'meeting places' I've frequented in my love, and I was grateful for all of them. I'm in a bit of an ebullient "Thank the world" mood :)
For those who are interested / concerned, all is well for me personally and those I know of. Some people have lost a lot, some things insurance won't cover. As for me, I'm grateful I came through so unscathed.
Hope all in LJ-land are well. A little something I wrote today:
Belief in The Good entails that there’s some chance of meeting Good anywhere.
Therefore nowhere you go is cut off from Good.
Therefore there is nowhere that it is impermissible to go.
Some places you go will make it more challenging for you to make your way back to Feeling Good.
But you can always get back there. So do not despair.
There’s always time, because The Good never disappears. Omnipresent.
If you believe in an all-powerful God, you must believe that there is nothing anyone can do to result in going anywhere from which it is impossible to commune with God.
You do not need to believe in damnation to believe in the motivation to do Good.
You can be close to God (meaning to say, close enough to God to relate to God in a fully fulfilling way) by seeking to do Good alone, with no belief in damnation, or in fact belief in anything else at all.
That is my belief.
(PS: The possibly Anglo-specific pun of “Good” and “God” could be seen as a cheap device. The Truthiness of it could be in question merely because “God is Good” doesn’t have the same ring in other languages. It could be said that something that “rings true” in one language is suspectly “truthful” merely because it doesn’t “ring true” in translation. However, if it rings true for you, specifically, given your point of view in that instance, then I believe this is an encounter with Truth Itself, with Being-ness, with the Goodness of God.)
(* edit: I upon re-reading I realised I'd written the typo "in my love" instead of "in my life", but I let it stand. Seems more fitting that way, somehow.)
I thought of people I'd met on LiveJournal, as well as other 'meeting places' I've frequented in my love, and I was grateful for all of them. I'm in a bit of an ebullient "Thank the world" mood :)
For those who are interested / concerned, all is well for me personally and those I know of. Some people have lost a lot, some things insurance won't cover. As for me, I'm grateful I came through so unscathed.
Hope all in LJ-land are well. A little something I wrote today:
Belief in The Good entails that there’s some chance of meeting Good anywhere.
Therefore nowhere you go is cut off from Good.
Therefore there is nowhere that it is impermissible to go.
Some places you go will make it more challenging for you to make your way back to Feeling Good.
But you can always get back there. So do not despair.
There’s always time, because The Good never disappears. Omnipresent.
If you believe in an all-powerful God, you must believe that there is nothing anyone can do to result in going anywhere from which it is impossible to commune with God.
You do not need to believe in damnation to believe in the motivation to do Good.
You can be close to God (meaning to say, close enough to God to relate to God in a fully fulfilling way) by seeking to do Good alone, with no belief in damnation, or in fact belief in anything else at all.
That is my belief.
(PS: The possibly Anglo-specific pun of “Good” and “God” could be seen as a cheap device. The Truthiness of it could be in question merely because “God is Good” doesn’t have the same ring in other languages. It could be said that something that “rings true” in one language is suspectly “truthful” merely because it doesn’t “ring true” in translation. However, if it rings true for you, specifically, given your point of view in that instance, then I believe this is an encounter with Truth Itself, with Being-ness, with the Goodness of God.)
(* edit: I upon re-reading I realised I'd written the typo "in my love" instead of "in my life", but I let it stand. Seems more fitting that way, somehow.)