CHARACTERS

The morning sky seems to promise both sun and clouds. Always a good time for a walk.

As I returned home yesterday I was thinking of some of the characters or interesting people I meet. There is the elderly Russian lady at the bus stop who likes me to stop and talk to her as she is waiting for the bus. I now know all about her family, the death of her daughter and her husband and the son and daughter who have moved to the States to have successful carriers. The bus arrives and I will hear more the next time we meet.

Arriving home the young boy, 9 or 10, is riding on his scooter up and down the street talking away to himself. He is quite happy to ignore me but I wave at him anyway.

One of the twin boys is leaving for work. One is very friendly while the other is more reserved and I cannot tell them apart. Again I wave anyway.

Across from us lives an elderly couple and he is now in his nineties but he is extremely fit and knowable and offers to help when he sees us working on the house.
I wonder what we will be like at ninety? Or my children?

I love the title for God in the Old Testament "The Ancient of Days" where over the centuries they have searched for the true character of God. Jesus is like God and God is like Jesus but even with all the writings we have and the stories different characters have written about both Jesus and God there seem to be many different opinions. There is now new light being shed on the scriptures and hopefully there will be a clearer picture of the character and the holiness of God.

The character of God, seen in Jesus, is not violent and tribal and yet religion has lead to violence and ethnic cleansing, racism and homophia etc.

"Jesus hasn't sold the humble donkey he rode into Jerusalum upon on eBay and purchased tanks and land mines." Brian D. Mclaren writes in his book "A New Kind of Christianity".

Yet so many things are done in the name of God that allows the love of power to be stronger than the power of love.