Saturday, July 13, 2013

Mary Doria Russell on Holiness: "Bombs Do Not Drop from God's Hand"



Another reflection from my reading over the years, on the theme of what constitutes holiness--this is Mary Doria Russell in her book A Thread of Grace (NY: Ballantine, 2005):

The Holy One has made us His partners, the sages teach. He gives us wheat, we make bread.  He gives us grapes, we make wine. He gives us the world. We make of it what we will—all of us together. When the preponderance of human beings choose to act with justice and generosity and kindness, then learning and love and decency prevail. When the preponderance of human beings choose power, greed, and indifference to suffering, the world is filled with war, poverty, and cruelty. Bombs do not drop from God’s hand. Triggers are not pulled by God’s finger. Each of us chooses, one by one, and God’s eye does not turn from those who suffer or those who inflict the suffering. Our choices are weighed. And, thus, the nations are judged (pp. 158-9).

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