Entertaining Angels

7. When Dorothy is sitting in the church praying and meditating she is speaking directly to God when she says, "You really sneak up on a person, don't you." This line refers to the relationship she has with God. Before this she never saw herself giving so much and living in this way that she always cares for the poor. The comment speaks of how God almost threw his love on her, encouraging her to do the things that she did. It also pertains to all these people, especially peter, who just came out of no where looking for help as well as being influential. She also may see God as all of these people sneaking up on her looking for her care, because yes God is the all powerful but in the faces of these people he exists and therefore really is in the poor. In a way God has sneaked up on me. I noticed it when I was deciding whether or not I should be there for this one person, instead of pretending to sleep like everyone else. I thought how bad I want someone to just be there and tell me it is going to fine even though it might not be. And so I got up out of bed and comforted someone because they were very upset. Before I was looked up to by that person, but now I am the face of God for them, they said that. That little push to get up and go help came from God and honestly he really snuck up on me. C.S. Lewis really nailed it when he said that God lays out snares and traps, so be careful if you are an atheist. It is funny that most people have a soft side, and I believe that it comes from God. Soft sides are one of God's traps along with many other things. Some how we as humans get trapped into helping and caring, maybe because we truly care or because of that little thing called a conscience. God biggest trick was giving us all a conscience. As the creator, I guess he had to be clever because he really got us good with consciences. Along with consciences, he comes into our lives through many things including other people that only push you to do good. He works in so many ways and he certainly is there, because anyone to deny his existence, would be ignorant. Oh God, he is just so tricky.

The Mystery of Suffering

The three important points about Jesus and suffering teach us how we should act. Obviously we can only act in smaller ways than Jesus but at least we can still try. The first point is Jesus resisted and eliminated suffering. We cannot heal the blind or the sick but we can but we certainly can simply help others with things they need, problems thy have, or with encouragement and positivity. The second point is Jesus rejected suffering as punishment for sin. We can be like Jesus by also not believing that suffering is from a previous sin and those who suffer deserve it. Everyone does good and bad things this does not mean we should go through tragedy because of it. The third point is Jesus trusted a compassionate, present God. This is what we all really need, we need unbreakable faith. Our faith is the connection we have to our God, not the church, not the leaders, not mass, just our faith. Through faith we trust our God just as Jesus did through good times and the bad. One interpretation of suffering came from the Hebrews. They would use the blood of a sacrificed animal to symbolize the life of the person or the community. They would then pour the blood on the alter as a symbol to reunite the life with God. This process and the animal that was sacrificed would represent the people's desire for reconciliation and union with God. The second interpretation was from St. Anselm who worked off of St. Augustine. He said that sin was like if a peasant were to insult a king. So, since sin is an infinite offense against God, the peasant would be in the kings debt forever. And then the peasant or humans can never pay back God.