Plays like Shakespeare’s King Lear and Akira Kurosawa’s film transformation of it, Ran, show that it is human greed, pride and folly that unleashes much suffering in the world. God holds us responsible for the suffering we have created, but he also embraces that suffering. Christ redeems us by giving us a chance to respond to his suffering by comforting or healing the suffering of others. Like the (possibly apocryphal) story of the statue of Jesus that had its arms blown off in World War II and someone put up a sign saying, ‘Christ has no hands but yours.’ http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Feb2005/Family.asp
If abnegation of power makes God more fully himself, loss of power can make us poor, dependent on God, more fully human.
In King Lear, when Lear gives up his kingdom, banishes his good daughter, puts himself at the mercy of his wicked daughters, and becomes powerless, destitute and mad, he begins to discover himself, particularly his responsibility for the poor that he has ignored:
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend youFrom seasons such as these?
…. O, I have ta’en too little care of this. (3.4.28)
Liberation theology tells us that God has a radical preference for justice toward the poor – that Jesus appeared first to shepherds, and that he spent his time with fishermen, prostitutes and tax collectors. If I believe in God I must also demonstrate this engagement with the poor and outcast.
When I read 'A New Way of Encountering God', I was struck by
The here-and-nowness that LT deals with
That we are all theologians and that theology is a love letter to God
That God (as I firmly believe) s a mystery that none of us can penetrate, and that intellectual modesty is essential
That theology's love letter changes with time
When I came to the part about Commitment being the first act and theology the second, my heart began to burn within me (sorry to be mushy but that is what it felt like) - I so want to find a way of committing myself in this area - have been feeling this for some years now, but not sure how I can do it. I do encounter poor people to some extent in volunteering a little with refugees in Blacktown, but this is mild compared with the problems of Africa or Latin America.
I was moved by the three main parts of LT - liberation from:
unjust social structures
the power of fate
personal guilt or sin
Reflecting that I do have a growing desire to confront the structural causes of injustice, I realized that in some ways I already do this - that friends and colleagues and family seem to find it helpful to talk to me, especially when they are struggling to release their creativity from the social constraints that inhibit it. I had a very strong sense too, that a particular friend is actually one of the poor in spirit, who asks for my love in a very special way that liberates both of us from some of our past fears and unhealthy patterns. This led me to reflect on the moments of poverty of spirit in my daughter and husband - moments when they need me to listen and be with them. This too is an obligation.
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