A Quote by Criss Jami

A god who gave us everything we wanted would be the most malevolent god of all. With an infantile curiosity, we insist on tasting the cockroach on the floor while our father is preparing a magnificent feast for us.
There are two gods. The god our teachers teach us about, and the God who teaches us. The god about whom people usually talk, and the God who talks to us. The god we learn to fear, and the God who speaks to us of mercy. The god who is somewhere up on high, and the God who is here in our daily lives. The god who demands punishment, and the God who forgives us our trespasses. The god who threatens us with the torments of Hell, and the God who shows us the true path. There are two gods. A god who casts us off because of our sins, and a God who calls to us with His love.
Both the cockroach and the bird would get along very well without us, although the cockroach would miss us most.
God’s perspective on us is remarkable, almost unbelievable. He delights in us and loves us as a caring Father. He’s running toward us, ready to embrace and forgive us. He’s for us in all the pain of life and can sustain us in every challenge. as i learn to see from God’s perspective, my perspective on everything else shifts. i realize that my failures don't disqualify me. i’m aware of the security i already have in God’s grace. i trust that nothing will separate me from the love of God in Christ.
God is grooming us for leadership. He's watching to see how we demonstrate our faithfulness. He does that through his apprenticeship program, one that prepares us for Heaven. Christ is not simply preparing a place for us; he is preparing us for that place.
Our time on earth and our energy, intelligence, opportunities, relationships, and resources are all gifts from God that he has entrusted to our care and management. We are stewards of whatever God gives us. This concept of stewardship begins with the recognition that God is the owner of everything and everyone on earth. ... We never actually own anything during our brief stay on earth. God just loans the earth to us while we're here. It was God's property before you arrived, and God will loan it to someone else after you die.
Today is [the feast of] Santa Rita, Patron Saint of impossible things - but this seems impossible: let us ask of her this grace, this grace that all, all, all people would do good and that we would encounter one another in this work, which is a work of creation, like the creation of the Father. A work of the family, because we are all children of God, all of us, all of us! And God loves us, all of us! May Santa Rita grant us this grace, which seems almost impossible. Amen.
If we believe in an all-powerful God, then we must then believe that God gave us this Earth, and we must in turn believe that God gave us its laws of gravity, of chemistry, of physics. We must also believe that God gave us our human powers of intellect and reason.
And there is something profoundly humbling about knowing God. I’m not talking about the trinket God or the genie-in-a-lamp God. I mean the God who invented the tree in my front yard, the beauty of my sweetheart, the taste of a blueberry, the violence of a river at flood. There are a lot of religious trends that would have us controlling God, telling us that if we do this that and the other, God will jump through our hoops like a monkey. But this other God, this real God, is awesome and strong, all-encompassing and passionate, and for reasons I will never understand, he wants to father us.
This is where you first failed us. You gave us minds and told us not to think. You gave us curiosity and put a booby-trapped tree right in front of us. You gave us sex and told us not to do it. You played three-card monte with our souls from day one, and when we couldn't find the queen, you sent us to Hell to be tortured for eternity. That was your great plan for humanity? All you gave us here was daisies and fairy tales and you acted like that was enough. How were we supposed to resist evil when you didn't even tell us about it?
God loved us, and to prove it to us became human in order to become our brother in the flesh. He became poor, the poorest of the poor, in order to be able to include us all as his brothers (and sisters). He became a little child in order to be like children, even born, children from the slums. God has loved us and has given us all that he is and has. The Father gave the Son, the Son gave his very self, the Holy Spirit became our habitual sanctifier.... How grateful I should be to this kind Savior!
We must embrace our differences, even celebrate our diversity. We must glory in the fact that God created each of us as unique human beings. God created us different, but God did not create us for separation. God created us different that we might recognize our need for one another. We must reverence our uniqueness, reverence everything that makes us what we are: our language, our culture, our religious tradition.
Theresa strode over to us in a swish of cloth. "Enough of this, animator. He can't do it, so he pays the price. Either leave now, or join us at our...feast." Are you having rare Who-roast-beast?" I asked. What are you talking about?" It's from Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. You know the part, 'And they'd Feast! Feast! Feast! Feast! Feast! They would feast on Who-pudding and rare Who-roast-beast.'" You are crazy." So I've been told.
None of us like the concept of law because none of us like the restraints it puts on us. But when we understand that God has given us his law to aid us in guarding our souls, we see that the law is for our fulfillment, not for our limitation. The law reminds us that some things, some experiences, some relationships are sacred. When everything has been profaned, it is not just my freedom that has been lost- the loss is everyone's. God gave us the law to remind us of the sacredness of life, and our created legal systems only serve to remind us of the profane judgments we make.
Do we get what we want? Yes, we get what we want. God is that loving. If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our God-given pwer to make the world in our image, God allows us that freedom; we have the kind of license to do that.that's how love works. It cant be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins.
God wants to be our partner throughout life. Too often we are tempted to either carry the entire load ourselves or give everything to God and do nothing. God doesn't like either strategy. Sometimes He moves before us and sometimes after us - but He doesn't move without us. Without God... we cannot. Without us... God will not.
God gave us our agency. He taught us a way. He showed us what to do. But he gave us our agency and left us free to act as we choose to do.
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