Dale Cresap's blog

I said that you must become as little children to enter the Kingdom of heaven. What essential quality do children have that allows them into my Kingdom? Children are believers from day 1. They are hard-wired for faith. This isn’t a quality that you develop over time, but you do run the risk of losing it as you grow older. Children thrive on stories that are not true in historical and factual sense, but this process is still essential to their growth. Did you put away childish things when you got older?

Do you value authenticity? You see ethnic restaurants that claim to serve authentic food, but most people prefer their food with a foreign theme adapted to the tastes of their culture. Do Americans eat more cheese on their ‘Mexican’ and ‘Italian’ food than Mexicans and Italians do? But this is just a matter of taste. Authenticity is a more important concept when it comes to people. The concept is the same in being true to the original. Do you live and express your true self; your unique spirituality identity, rather than maintaining an image? This is not just a matter of taste.

Are you familiar with the story of the wedding feast? Do you remember that there were two categories of guests? There were invited guests, and those from the highways and byways that the servants were admonished to compel to come in. Which category do you identify with? Do you think that you got a proper invitation far in advance, and gave a prompt RSVP? Do you think that this category is superior to those who were dragged in off the streets? Do you know anyone who would identify with them?

You are familiar with the idea of applying for a job. You are happy if you get one you want. Not everyone is able to find the job they want, but I give gifts to everyone. But finding the gift I give you is not the same as applying for a job. You can train to fill the position you desire, but gifts from me are discerned, recognized, and called forth. There are many jobs you could do successfully, but my gifts are more unique and inherent. They are a part of your identity. What do you feel driven to do, that you would do without payment or recognition?

Do you believe in the sanctity of life? If everyone is created in my image that gives them intrinsic worth. How do you treat people who are created in my image? But not everyone professes the sanctity of life, and more importantly, not everyone lives in such a way to regard their fellow man or even themselves with dignity. The Golden Rule applies here. You may be able to treat people better than they regard themselves. In so doing you heap coals of fire on their heads, and provide a visible manifestation of a God they are alienated from.

Do you understand that you should not be envious of others? This is being resentful of their blessings and wishing that you could have them for yourself. Is there a virtue that corresponds to envy? You could express vicarious joy at the blessings that others receive without being resentful that they are not yours. This requires you to take a perspective larger than your own self-interest, but doing so provides you with so many benefits in life.

Do you prefer to judge yourself and your friends by your beliefs, and others by their behavior? This makes it easy for you, but it is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Intellectual and spiritual rigor demands that you use the same criteria for both. Since you aren’t likely to agree on doctrine, conduct becomes the default means of comparison for all. Do you avoid such a comparison? Every faith tradition produces some bad examples, but comparing the worst with the worst will not give valid results. You should evaluate the influence of faith practices on the group as a whole.

I describe love as hoping, bearing, and believing all things. Does this mean that love is naïve? If you applied the same terms to a person would you say that they are loving or gullible? You say that love is blind, but true love is not unaware. How do you look through loving eyes? Can you look at love not as naïve, but rather as a powerful influence that can bring into being that which is not yet visible? Love doesn’t see less than what is visible; it sees more. It sees potential and trusts in the ultimate and transcendent forces to realize it, and so brings it about.

Mass shootings are big stories that generate outrage. This is an appropriate response to the death of innocent people. How could someone be so alienated from humanity to take the lives of strangers? Yet more people die by suicide, and this does not generate such a strong response. How could someone be so alienated from humanity as to take their own life? These questions are more similar than different. No organ can survive apart from the body that gives it life, and the same principle applies to people that I describe as members of a body.

When people of differing faith traditions get together they like to argue about whose version of doctrine is correct. How often do you see anyone change their mind as the result of such a discussion? Perhaps a better approach is to compare practical, visible measures of the beneficial effects of adopting a particular faith. Are the people who convert to this faith more loving and kind, more generous and less violent than they were before? This is a stronger argument for the validity of a faith than one based on doctrinal correctness. Transformed lives are irrefutable evidence.