We have this life to live in state of molten creativity.
Heidegger said that man is a shepherd of being. We are given many gifts and our work is to notice them and curate them, not for Facebook or for colleagues or for resumes but rather, for God.
Sometimes Kai will run around the house in a madcap way on a tear with a stick or bone or a ball. He will look up, drop the ball and find a stick. He will run ‘round with it until we stop cheering him on and then he will grab a bigger stick, walking among my dinner guests, hitting their knees with the end of the stick to be sure they see him.
We too often think God allows us to exist. Or we believe God loves us in some etherial, distant way; rather the way Queen Elizabeth “loves” her people. But God likes us. The planet is too beautiful and life is too beautiful to have been given to us, created for us by a God who is distant. No. God loves us with a white, hot lust for our love.
As we shepherd our being – our existence, we are creating a life. Every day- an opportunity to create something exists. And this is why the monastic tradition of the prayerful review (called “recollection”) of the day at eventide is so important. What, today have I created? Good? Bad? OK? Gorgeous? What have I created today?
Perhaps God sees our sins and perhaps not. I know Kai has poo-ed here and there. A vomit or two. But over his nine years, all I remember – and I remember them well, are the times Kai has made me laugh or loved on me. And I wonder if God is not the same way with us – wondering what we will gather and present of our being? What money have we given way? What love have we given away? What kindnesses have we given away? Our little empires will fade and become dust. But what we give away and what we create as acts of love will last forever in God’s heart.
