Yesterday Tom shared with us some of the fruit of his reflection on the Sunday scriptures. And it was odd, but the same scripture struck me for quite a different reason.
from Wisdom
For you love all things that are
and loathe nothing that you have made;
for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.
And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it;
or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?
But you spare all things, because they are yours,
O LORD and lover of souls,
for your imperishable spirit is in all things!
In the spirit of communal lectio, I'll share what occurred to me in reading the passage.
There are some who maintain that humanity is utterly depraved and in the fall from grace all created things were dragged down with him and made low. That is that all creation is in some part bad, unworthy, or a constant spur to evil behavior.
What struck me here is once again the reaffirmation that what God has created is fundamentally good. He would not have created what is evil, it is not in him to do so. More, all of creation is sustained by Him, has life breathed into it by Him. All of creation is fundamentally good. And I think that extends to the fallen angels themselves. They are, in creation, fundamentally good. They have chosen through their own will to deny the good. They are ultimately negative, creating or causing nothing in themselves, but reacting to all that is and negating it. Nevertheless, they cannot negate themselves. God will put them away at the end of time, but until then, they continue in their rebellion against the basic goodness of all things.
Without becoming Pantheistic, we can say that His breath is in all breathing things, His life is in all living things. All things exist because of His constant intense love and attention. Without that all things would fly apart and become nothing. He sustains all with the eternal hope that all things will return to Him and the eternal knowledge that He has made it possible through His son.
