Angels with A**holes and God in a Google Search

I’ve written before about my professor, Reverend Beverly Asbury, Chaplain from Vanderbilt University, circa 1990s.  He was my Religious Studies professor in undergraduate school and I adore him.  I probably can’t measure the influence he’s had on me since I met him when I was 19 or 20 years old. One of his bits of wisdom, probably an offhand comment on his part, but something that made a profound impact on me was when he said, ‘You know, we humans are ALL just angels with assholes.’ 

I’ve found that to be one of the truest statements I’ve ever heard.  Each of us has potential to be an angel of mercy and compassion, a symbol of hope, an act of love and giving.  Yet, each of us is bound by our humanity.  We are bodies.  Sometimes we are full of shit.  We are transcendent and just pretty regular at the same time. 

I am learning something about myself and in the end, maybe I just want to put it in words, because that’s what I like to do.  In my life, I have witnessed selfless kindness, unimaginable courage, creative compassion, love overcoming fear (not to mention overcoming rules), and humanity enduring with humor and love even in the face of such horror as the Holocaust. 

And I believe that when you see other people, you have the opportunity to see the ‘angel’ in them.  The holy in them.  If there’s holy in us, I feel that there is holy out there, too.  That’s just what I believe.  Somewhat along the lines of Albert Einstein, who said,  “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

So, for me, as I get older, one of the intrinsic pieces of my own ‘mental and emotional health,’ as I summarize in my ‘ google bio’, is my spiritual life.  When we talk about spirituality, nothing is more frustrating that the limitation of words, but let me give it a try.  Even as a little kid, I had lots of questions about God – “How could God always have been there?  What came before God?”  My mom even invited the minister over for dinner to talk with me about it (a terrible explanation – ‘take it on faith’, was what I was told.)  Other questions – “why should I want to be a good person, just to go to heaven?  Is that really being a good person, if I just want some reward?”  And I took religious studies classes in college.  Death and Dying classes when they were offered.  So, maybe it’s no surprise that this is where I am today.

Maybe you have an inkling that you’d like to pay more attention to your spiritual life?  If you do, found or been recommended a number of online resources that create access to information, ideas, and community and I thought you might like to take a look too.  I hope you find this helpful:

 

Spirituality and Practice -  www.spiritualityandpractice.com  - can range from pop to academic, but pretty straight up and diverse theology.  I look at it every day and am amazed as the breadth and depth of information, inspiration and continuing education opportunities.

  

Patheos –  www.patheos.com  If you want to get an unfiltered universe of every type of belief/opinion/pop culture blog community this is where to go.  Every group from Pagan to Evangelical Christian from Muslim to Unitarian Universalist is well represented here and there is no editorial filter or preference.  You may not like or agree with everything you read, but everyone is welcome here.

Belief -  www.globalpost.com/globalpost-blogs/belief  -  This is part of Global Post – an American online newsource that focuses on global news.  This page is where religion and news intersect, primarily through current news events.

On Being with Krista Tippett -  www.onbeing.org Her public radio show is available on podcast here.  Diverse and thoughtful, a broad-ranging understanding of spirituality that encompasses science as well as belief.

Daily om -   www.dailyom.com:  kind of new-agey/Buddhist writing.  Something to think about in small nuggets.