Radically Happy

5:50 AM, Thursday, January 2nd, 2014 [posted October, 2023]

Dear God,

I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I could never have imagined.

I know, Ernie. It is okay. Few do.

Is it true? Christ on the cross, sacrificing his body for the sake of the world: He was only doing what He saw His Father doing?

Christ on the cross, sacrificing his body for the sake of the world: He was only doing what He saw His Father doing?

Ernie

THAT was how You created the universe, in whatever poor anthropomorphic terms we can dare use to understand. This universe, this world, these people, all of this, the beauty and horror. It is like your body. You feel everything, bear everything. And let us choose how to torture You.

More or less, Ernie. But it is not that bad. Or rather, it is that bad — and far worse than you can imagine — but also far, far better. More infinities than you can count. If the pain is infinitely greater, the glory is infinitely more infinities better!

“If the pain is infinitely greater, the glory is infinitely more infinities better!”
God the Father

I believe You. I… I’m sorry for those things I said, and thought. About You being distant and uncaring. I never realized what it cost You — is costing You. You are not just our father, You are our mother, bearing us in Your body, feeding us with Your life.

Yes, Ernie. But through Jesus, you know me as Father, because I am calling you up and out of this world to live a transcendent story.

That’s the story arc, isn’t it? Calling us out of the mother-womb into the father-mission.

“Calling us out of the mother-womb into the father-mission.”
Ernie

Yes. And the answer to the riddle you’ve been asking since Andrew decided to leave — what men have been asking in stories since at least Gilgamesh.

How to leave the father’s dominion and yet maintain a relationship.

Yes. By the Father voluntarily emptying a domain of His manifest presence, to allow the Son to create his own glory that yet honors the Father.

Like I did with Pat on New Year’s Eve, withdrawing from Frame so he can re-create it in his image.

Yes, very much so. That was a good day’s work.

Thank you.

“Now you know. I have never — will never — ask of you what I have not done Myself.”
God the Father

You’re welcome. Now you know. I have never — will never — ask of you what I have not done myself. And the more you submit to my story and walk in my ways, the better everything will get. Including the pain.

Really?

Yes. Not less; better.

The sex too? 🙂

Yes, Ernie. Even that.