{"id":19465,"date":"2020-11-06T09:37:08","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T14:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19465"},"modified":"2020-11-06T10:29:48","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T15:29:48","slug":"for-the-good-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19465","title":{"rendered":"For the Good of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Public Virtue<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For\nthe Good of the World<\/strong><br>\nFriday, \u202fNovember 6, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5Vqf9WRKYTs\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>God is the ultimate nonviolent one, so we dare not accept\nany theory of salvation\u2014much less socialization, economics, or politics\u2014that is\nbased on violence, exclusion, social pressure, or moral coercion. When we do,\nthese are legitimated as a proper way of life. <em>God saves by loving and including, not by excluding or\npunishing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So\nwhat does it really mean to follow Jesus? I believe we are invited to gaze upon\nthe image of the crucified Jesus to soften our hearts toward all suffering, to\nhelp us see how we ourselves have been \u201cbitten\u201d by hatred and violence, and to\nknow that God\u2019s heart has always been softened toward us. In turning our gaze\nto this divine truth, we gain compassion toward ourselves and all others who\nsuffer. It largely happens on the psychic and unconscious level, but that is\nexactly where all of our hurts and our will to violence lie. A transformative\nreligion must touch us at this primitive, brainstem level, or it is not\ntransformative at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>History\nis continually graced with <em>people who have\nbeen transformed in this way and somehow learned to act beyond and outside\ntheir self-interest for the good of the world. <\/em>They are exemplars of public\nvirtue. We recall Nelson Mandela, Corazon Aquino, &nbsp;John Lewis, and Ruth\nBader Ginsburg. Add to them Etty Hillesum, Corrie ten Boom, Rosa Parks, Mother\nTeresa, Dorothy Day, \u00d3scar Romero, C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez, and many others. These\ninspiring figures gave us strong evidence that the mind of Christ still\ninhabits the world. Most of us are fortunate to have crossed paths with many\nlesser-known persons who exhibit the same presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Following Jesus\nis a vocation to share the fate of God for the life of the world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>To allow what\nGod for some reason allows\u2014and uses: the imperfect everything, including me!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>And to suffer\never so slightly what God suffers eternally. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Often, this has\nlittle to do with believing the \u201cright\u201d things about God\u2014beyond the fact that\nGod is love itself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those who agree to carry and love what God loves\u2014which is both the good and the bad\u2014and to pay the price for its reconciliation within themselves, these are the followers of Jesus Christ. They are the leaven, the salt, the remnant, the mustard seed that God uses to transform the world. To maintain this mind and heart over the long haul is true Gospel spirituality. I have no doubt that it takes many daily decisions and many surrenders. It is aided by seeking out like-minded people. Such grace and freedom are never lone achievements. Saints are those who wake up while in this world, instead of waiting for the next one. Francis of Assisi, William Wilberforce, Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, and Harriet Tubman did not feel superior to anyone else; they just knew they had been let in on a big divine secret, and they wanted to do their part in revealing it to those who knew nothing about it <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"289\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-06-at-10.28.37-AM-500x289.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19468\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-06-at-10.28.37-AM-500x289.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-06-at-10.28.37-AM-300x173.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-06-at-10.28.37-AM-768x444.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-06-at-10.28.37-AM.png 1976w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public Virtue For the Good of the World Friday, \u202fNovember 6, 2020 God is the ultimate nonviolent one, so we dare not accept any theory of salvation\u2014much less socialization, economics, or politics\u2014that is based on violence, exclusion, social pressure, or moral coercion. When we do, these are legitimated as a proper way of life. God [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19465"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19465"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19469,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19465\/revisions\/19469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}