God Really Likes Me !!!!

I was walking down New York’s Ninth Avenue one Friday morning at 7:15 A.M. en route to Mass with the incomparable Sisters of Life. The Hell’s Kitchen/San Juan Hill district of the West Side was stretching and yawning itself awake for another colorful New York day. Its citizens were sweeping the sidewalks and opening fish stores and newspaper stands. People were exiting the low rent apartments with their half awake look. And I - - - - I was almost skipping down the avenue with an 83.5 year old élan because I was flooded with a clear awareness that I am very happy. I am very well. I can walk 10 blocks with ease and can see these lively things in all their movement and color and shade. I can hear the sounds of this vibrant neighborhood. I can laugh at a good joke. I can relish a cappuchino on a cold night. I have good friends. I have appropriate fun.

And suddenly I felt: God likes ME! He (I use the masculine pronoun in the Biblical and traditional sense) REALLY likes me!

Of course, since I was six years old, I have known that God loves me. The Holy Cross Sisters in the Paulist Grammar school made it very very clear to us that we were all children of the Father and were redeemed by His only Son, Jesus. Yet that KNOWLEDGE always had a kind of mechanical quality, a kind of intellectual cognitive surety, a kind of lip service assent.

Was it that I knew without knowing that I knew? In any event it lacked the kind of warmth and sense of well being that is linked to being "liked."

I have attended and experienced spectacular presentations which reinforced the theologic insight of God’s love, presentations by scholarly and super bright professionals. For example, I have most recently been touched and inspired by the mindboggling "Passion of the Christ" of Mel Gibson. Powerful. Engrossing. Compelling. That God would do this for me - - is almost beyond belief. And that (according to Thomas Aquinas) the Divine Jesus would have done all of this even if I were the ONLY person ever on this planet - - - - - . Wouldn’t it seem that any doubt of God’s love for us would be swept away in a millisecond? Initially, it would so appear yet I am meeting more and more people who have no feeling that God does love them with a deep and personal love. Logic, reason and common sense are irrelevant here. There is some negative force so deep, so powerful, so pervasive that it can make 1+1= 19 ! Some one will say: " I know it clearly up-here (in the head ) but I don’t believe it here (in the heart or the feelings)". And what does such a dichotomy do to one’s personal and behavioral life?

What does one make of such a dynamic? Where does it leave me If I KNOW that God loves me but I don’t feel it ?

Where does it leave me if I am not at all sure that I mean something to God? Where does it leave me if I am not sure I believe in His love for me personally?

Does it mean that this kind of Love is cerebral or intellectual and that Liking is emotional or visceral? Is this another way of saying that the human being MUST have a legitimate self esteem to be happy? I note that in the work I do with the wonderful members of Courage, people will generally succeed in advancing in the spiritual life to the extent that they FEEL good about themselves. I note the negative correlation, likewise, that they will do poorly to the extent that they feel they are worthless, unloveable and failures--- and will hence engage in self destructive behaviors to " level off" their anxiety about self loathing.

The so-called "medication"( i..e. sinful acting out of the interior turbulence) is a logical consequence of feeling that "No one really likes me…" Even if there is no distorted sexual expression, one could fall into depression and emotional paralysis. Where do these terrible self destructions come from? Certainly, at least in part, from very early family structures with infrequent expressions of affection or from frightening early life experiences of failure and rejection with peers or siblings. There must be a myriad of possible reasons.

But the one concrete observation I have made involves the expectation of impossible attainment, a common, human and looney pasttime - - This demands ( if even on a distorted and personal perception level) that every single person in the world must love me or I am nothing or that I am held to some "out of reach" level of personal perfection. I must be flawless, inerrant and always right. Obviously, such a perception, from a logical point of view, is insane. Oh happy fault, this Original sin, this aboriginal calamity which explains so much of human craziness. Clearly the fantasy of total success is unattainable, yet emotionally it can drive me as if I could "reach" what cannot be grasped. In the midst of all this frenzy, if a person can risk the FEELING that God smiles on me not only when I have victory and success and triumph but that He winks an eye at my blundering failure, my mistakes, my sins. Yet as a loving, firm parent, He can give me a spiritual whack on my psychic bottom. Emotionally, I can "know" that He expects effort and generosity and even crippled goodness. But as a reasonable parent, He will rejoice at my reaching out to Him in my own brokenness. Doing spiritual baby steps, even at 83, makes my Lord and my God really like me. It is as if He wants to "hang out" with me. What an ecstatic feeling that is. So, I argue that there IS a legitimate way to Union with God through the emotions/the feelings. I am sure that even the great St. Thomas of Aquino would agree with me. I hope to meet him someday at a celestial seminar and check it out!