"People are odd creatures: We are at the same time very good and very sinful. These qualities do not cancel each other out. Faith is to live and to hold onto that paradox."(R.Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 23)
Sometimes I wish I was just 100% something. I feel like most of my existence is contradiction, though paradox is probably more accurate. There seem to be so many paradoxes with me,that I am often left wondering who I am.
Actually the real problem is that I believe there exists a stereotype of what a priest is. And I'm sure that I don't fit that stereotype. It is probably true for just about any occupation. And when we don't feel the stereotype is us, it gets confusing. Maybe we'll try to become that person, usually with disastrous results.
The healthier approach may be to fully understand the paradoxical nature of being human. It seems that it may be an important component of being made in the image of God.
There are so many paradoxical images of what God is and does, and that's just in the Bible. Yet that very paradox, what seems on the surface to be an inconsistency in Divine, is perhaps what makes God so compelling for me.
If I can live with the paradoxical nature of God, I should probably give myself the same benefit of faith.
Blessings,
Ed
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