Chance or the Dance?
Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves JPII Fides et Ratio
Recently our youth group prayed that everyone know the joy of experiencing God. This was on the heart of a couple of teens, as we pondered the things we wanted to talk to God about. And it really is that simple. There are people who do not have this joy. My son once had a dream about Hell. It was not a place of fire and agonized spirits. It was a void. It was the stark absence of God. This is what the atheist has before him. A terrible Nothing.
The knowledge of God gives the Christian a deep peace, a river of life that flows deep beneath his every thought. A Christian with a negative outlook is one who has not fully discovered his Faith, or is avoiding fully living his Faith.
A recurring theme I see when atheists are refuting theist arguments for the existence of God is “But who made God?” This is their “aha, gotcha” moment. But that is exactly the point. No one made God. He is the unmoved Mover, the uncaused Cause. He is the Lord of the Dance
If one microscopic detail were left out of the primordial mixing pot, we would not exist. A Christian scientist observes this and praises God. An atheist observes this and tries harder to find an answer. The atheist must end up believing that life is the product of chance. This is a conclusion that appears to amount to—faith. At which point the believer makes more sense.
An atheist cannot get over the idea that God transcends reason. Reason tells us that there is a God, and that he is the omnipotent creator. Faith tells us that he has spoken to us through scripture and He is a personal loving Being who loved us into existence. A Christian does not have to divorce reason to accept Faith. Reason takes the Christian to the brink Faith from where he flies on wings of Joy.
The Atheist chooses Chance. The Christian is drawn to the Dance.

Nada te turbe,
nada te espante;
todo se pasa,
Dios no se muda.
La pacientia todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene nada la falta:
solo Dios basta.

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

walk in the reign

No Fear

No Fear. Not too long ago almost every young person had a tee-shirt from this company in their closet. The brand was developed as a line of clothing appealing to athletes involved in action sports, such as surfing, snowboarding, and motor-cross. "No fear" was the motto for anyone addicted to the adrenaline rush of big waves, steep slopes and fast engines. The implication is that fear is for wimps. While not everyone is called to jeopardize their bodily well- being by hanging off cliffs, jumping from buildings or paddling into the seas, there is another place in life where this motto is for everyone.
A Christian's motto should always be, No Fear. No Fear was the motto of the Virgin Mary when she told the angel Gabriel, in response to his stupendous announcement about her Divine pregnancy, "Be it done unto me according to your word." No Fear was the motto of the apostles when they emerged from the cenacle, filled with the Holy Spirit and ready to spread the Good News to an unwelcoming world. No Fear was the motto of the missionaries who took the message of Christ to every corner of the earth and into all manner of danger, including persecution and death. No Fear was the motto of people like Francis of Assisi who stripped his garments before his father and walked away from his life of luxury to rebuild Christ's church in medieval Italy. No Fear was the motto of Fr. Damien who in the late 1800s volunteered to be the chaplain for a leper colony on Molokai Island, accepting his ultimate fate as a fair trade for doing the mercy work of Christ. No Fear is the motto of every teen who elects to stand out from the crowd, upholding unfashionable attitudes about faith and morality. No Fear is the motto of the retired person who uses his or her last bit of life energy, serving others in spite of physical failing. All these people have something in common; they know that there is nothing to fear when they are doing the will of God.
There is a more popular motto these days. That is, “Fear This and That and the Other Thing.” There has been a lot of talk in our local news about possible tsunamis and earthquakes. Even scarier perhaps is the economic storm clouds that some people see on the horizon. It seems that every decade or so we can't stand our boring existence and begin to look into the future, perceiving signs of impending societal or seismic doom. Fear directs our thoughts and we crawl into little caves of worry, marking tallies on the wall for each day we escape disaster. People are prone to this kind of anxiety. We completely forget that we are people of Anno Domini, the Year of the Lord. (Folks, this is what AD means, a dating system that has recently and unfortunately been changed, in the public world to CE, for Common Era, but that is a whole other subject.)
This kind of fear is a lack of trust which is really a lack of Faith in Jesus who promised to be with us always, “even to the end of the Age.” (Mt. 28:20) Christians, let us mark our days with tallies for the blessings we have received and the blessings we have given in the name of Christ, and let’s not keep peering into the darkness because the Light is ever present before us.