The Heart's Cry: Psalm 14

So as not to infringe copyright I will be posting a link to the Psalm. I will be posting the NRSV link since it comes pretty close to what the Abbey Psalter uses, but feel free to change it to whatever version you prefer, after all it is not the exact words I am trying to get at but rather the purpose behind those words.

Psalm 14

I think that we often have the same problem that David does, we speak way too often in generalities. He starts this Psalm off by calling those who say 'that there is no god' fools, and some of you [or most] may agree with him, but the fact of the matter is that those who have chosen against our beliefs often do so for very logical reasons. One of the authors I read often talks about being in conversation with atheists and asks them about the God they don't believe in, he relays that often by the end of the conversation he will say, 'I don't believe in that God either.' Then he goes into the God he does believe in, by listening to them, by giving them space he is in turn given space, given the right to share his thoughts. Unfortunately many of us are never given that space, that chance, because we never give the space, that chance to anyone else.

I have, for lack of a better word, a tagline that I hold that encompasses what I believe the church should be about, it is Real Faith, Real People, Real Love. Real Faith allows space for questions to be asked, for people to struggle, it is in no means a blind faith, This is because too often what we preach and what we require is blindness, whereas Jesus claimed that he came to give sight to the blind. We decide where God can speak and how God can speak and what God can speak about, when we need to realize that God speaks wherever, however, whenever God chooses to speak and we must have 'ears to hear.' It is this blind faith that people often rebel against, and we call them fools for it, perhaps we are the fools who are too scared that God cannot handle X and they are the smart ones who call us out on it. Our God is big enough for any subject, any conversation, any disagreement.

+ How do you view atheists and those who follow other religions? Is it a view that is congruent with Jesus's call for us to love our neighbor as ourselves?

+ In what way(s) do you have a blind faith? In what way(s) do you have a Real Faith?

+ Do you think that it is your job to protect God? If so how can you begin to let God be God instead?