Be here now

Today's snow

Since it's been brought up in the comments, I've been thinking about original sin--total depravity, in Calvin's words. It's such a difficult thing to wrap one's brain around, Adam and Eve taking a bite from that apple. When I dive down into the intricacies of that moment, it seems like their failure was one of love, of failing to love God, of not trusting him.

I've been diving down into the meanings of these words, or trying to, meditating on them. What it actually means to love another person, to love God—to trust him. To trust that he really has good things in store for you, not bad. How a parent can claim to love a child and then go on and hurt that child. And it happens every day, in subtle ways, even with parents who don't put their cigarettes out on their children's faces. How it feels like it happens, even with God.

So we all bite the apple every day. We all fail to love. And God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love. Love is what he gives us as fear's opposite. When I wrap my brain around these words, I get lost inside of them, but it's like Thomas Merton said—it all twines back to love, like a flame circling its own center.

Like Merton, like the heretic Bell, I say—love wins. Love is what we lost in the garden, what we regain with Christ. Love is what I lose hold of every minute, every minute that I try to hold onto. Here's my hymn for today, by the poet Mason Jennings:

Be here now
No other place to be
Or just sit there dreaming
Of how life could be
If we were somewhere better
Somewhere far
Away from all our worries
Well, here we are

You are the love of my life
Be here now
No other place to be
All the doubts that linger
Just set them free
And let good things happen
Let the future come
Into each moment
Like a rising sun

Sun comes up and we start again
Sun comes up and we start again
Sun comes up and we start again

Be here now
No other place to be
This whole world keeps changing
Come change with me
Everything that's happened
All that's yet to come
Is here inside this moment
It's the only one

--Mason Jennings, Boneclouds