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Showing posts from August, 2016

The Fathering of God, Part 1

We need God to be a Father to us—for our most basic conceptions about God, relationships, moral teaching, skills for living day to day, ability to relate to people in intimate ways, confidence to step out and take risks are all conditioned by our experiences with our parents and family and then sometimes with friends. Also, any honest assessment leads one to conclude that, to one degree or another, we are all wrong in how we see God, ourselves and others. Some of this error comes directly from the negative role that others have had in shaping our views of reality.  Yet having said this, we also have to acknowledge that in this world fathers (and mothers) are essential, even if they parent in ways that are flawed. For this is how God has set up human procreation and development, and more frequently than we perhaps admit, those human agents have done good for us. But even the best fathering falls very short of God’s fathering to those who belong to him. For our “father in the heavens