WHO'S GOT A BIG FAT HEAD?

I wonder if the Godhead ever wants to bang It’s forehead on the table – say with a loud, frustrated moan, That is NOT what We MEANT. I wonder if Wisdom and Truth ever rant to each other about how nobody ever, no matter how many different ways it’s said, seems to get it. I wonder if the Author of Life and Faith ever puts fingers into hair, squeezes temples and says, Holy Me, it. was. a. metaphor! There are few things in life that frustrate me more than being misunderstood. If I were God, I would probably need more forks than the world can produce to stick into my I see everything eyeballs – I suspect God feels misunderstood a lot. Maybe not. It is impossible to fathom Truth free from ego, free from the need to be known.

I do believe that Buddhism has some things very right – so much of our pain and suffering in life is rooted in ego. There is war all around us, innocents enduring the worst human rights violations, people dying from starvation of food and of love, and we sleep at night. But when our own sense of self is wounded, our trust is violated, our expectations are not met, or something we think we own is taken from us, we toss and turn in our beds. Ego rises up within us, shocked, deeply offended. How could you do this to me? We wish we were somebody just so we could say, Do you know who I am?? Do you know what I could do to you?!

I think that sometimes Christians behave as though God has a really, really big ego – that the Godhead is swollen and top-heavy and full of Itself. We try to knit together an image of God that aligns with the world that we recognize, and what we come up with is, God is angry. God is offended. God is disappointed. God demands a return on the investment in you. God is jealous for the Divine reputation and for the glory of The Name. God really loves you, but God doesn’t love the things you do, say, want, think or feel – so stop it, or God will be hurt and upset. God only wants to see Himself when He looks at you. I’m not sure how that even makes sense, but I know that we say it.

We behave as though God humbling Himself was an act of lowering His pride – as though every other day of eternity God sits on His throne and has white-robed angelics fanning Him, singing His praises and feeding Him grapes. We speak as though being a servant is something that is beneath God, something He must greatly lower Himself to be, something He must violate His own holiness to be – as though God were not, at all times, the complete and absolute totality of all that Love is.

We cannot comprehend Love that does not seek its own, that by Its very nature pours out of Itself and does not clamour to be known, that's one desire is to be received. We cannot grasp Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things without need for acknowledgment, appreciation or reciprocation. We try, but we cannot conceive of Love that is devoid of ego.

But I think that we should try.

Because I don’t believe that Love looks at the beloved and ever thinks, Wow, I’m way too good for you.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests ,but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.  Philippians  2:5-8