Great Bird of Love

Father Janos tells me not to forget that my sin cannot put me outside my position as an heir in the kingdom. Family ties are involved now, the security of the blood relative thing. Ahhh, the Calvin/Armenian snarl.

I am vaguely disinterested a spar. More interested in story and poetry, ahhh yes, the demonstration of the Great Love Bird tucking us under a Wing.

And do we not pray to Him from this feathered cove as if alleviating suffering in this world at any cost is the greatest good— our prayers great lists of wanting?

CS Lewis calls this Kindness. Happiness demanded on any terms.

However noble, he says, kindness (the removal of discomfort at any cost) is actually reserved only for those about whom we care nothing—those with whom we have no real relationship. Rebuke and discipline (can we say certain kinds of pain) by their very nature are reserved solely for the intimacy of family. Sons and daughters. Thus, no surprise, we of faith are often not only uncovered, but shoved, along with the downy lining, from the nest.

He, who has thus far merely nurtured, elongates and distends into Unstoppable. Formidable. Terrifying. Altogether Exacting and Insistent. But also unmistakably in the same instant, He unfurls and surges forth wide wings of Unrelenting Forgiveness, and wields Great Talons of Protection, and exudes Willingness in every moment to plummet into the greatest Sacrifice for just me.

True Love.

Do you see? It comes to this: the Father will not, indeed cannot, love me—love me like this—without KNOWING me as His child.

The conundrum of knowing, the pain of life, the ceaseless pulse love love love…