Theology and Sanity

Years ago I read a book called "Theology and Sanity" by Frank Sheed. It was a big fat book. The kind of book where you read a line and think about it for a while before going on to the next line.

Today something he said in the book has come back to me. Actually, I've been thinking about it for a while now.....in the book he stated that today many people say "God is in everything", when the reality is that "Everything is in God".

Lately, that thought has been helping me feel more calm. It is not just that God's holy spirit lives in me, but that my whole being and everything around me lives in God. Today I pictured myself, and all of creation, "in the belly of God" so to speak - like a type of a Jonah and the whale scenario (but better).

If we live in God, then we are safe because God is all around us and we cannot get lost if we are in God.

But then the question of evil popped into my small mind. And I thought....if everything is in God, and God is all goodness, then how can evil also be present?

Hmmmm....so then I was thinking...of original sin and Adam and Eve, and found myself getting ticked at them again. (It is all their fault if you ask me). But I digress...

I guess I'm back to the "weeds and the wheat". Because we have free will, humanity can and has, invited evil in. God tolerates it because it isn't time yet to separate the sheep from the goats and the weeds and the wheat.

So, then I thought.....if there is evil present in all things that are really living within God, are we truly safe? After all, one can walk across the street and get killed, or one can be an innocent embryo in his/her mother's womb and get killed, and all that still lives in God.

Are we more safe then, when we ignore or turn from evil and invite God in more than evil? Definitely yes. That is my thought anyway.

So the more we trust in God. The more we ask Him to keep us safe and to be with us, then the safer we will become. Darkness disappears when a candle is lit, so if we cleanes our hearts and try to stay sinfree, then God is all the more present to us, and dispels the darkness.

But still then, all things, good and bad, live with in God. Something tells me that I should not imagine all this as a physical being of God, as some giant person, holding all things within, for God Himself has no boundaries - no beginning and no ending...I don't think my mind is large enough to understand this subject.

So I will quit thinking about it for now. But I do feel more peace knowing that I am living IN God because that is exactly where I want to be.

...and I love being very close to His heart when I visit him in the Blessed Sacrament. That is truly my happy spot on the planet - very close to my sweet Jesus...the one who is within me at the same time I am within Him. I guess that is what communion is all about.