Everyone works for someone, reports to someone, is controlled by someone or is responsible to someone.  It starts at birth.  Our parents or guardians have complete authority over what happens to us 24/7; our free will consists of peeing, pooping and crying.

As we grow, more authority figures are added:  teachers, bus drivers, policemen, etc..  Then the workplace brings forth supervisors, task leaders, bosses, their bosses, division bosses, corporate bosses and the CEO.  Even in small businesses and partnerships someone has to assume the management role.

I used to write that God was at the top of the food chain.  Even a hermit in a secluded location in the dense forest, who planted his own garden and burned candles, would still have to answer to God in the final analysis.  I credit my upbringing and somewhat skewed Bible teaching as forming my view of “God’s justice,” he being the BIG BOSS.

The Old Testament paints a picture of a people who trembled at the thought that God might be near.  They begged their current prophet to speak on their behalf, for fear that the Almighty would smite them dead.  In the New Testament, however, Jesus shows us a very different God, one who is loving and caring, yet was not pleased with those that troubled or hurt their family and neighbors around them.

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I don’t mean why are you HERE.  I’m not referring to the 51 unique visitors to this blog who spend an average of 7 seconds each, checking in.  I mean why are YOU here — on this earth?  If you don’t believe in God, then you don’t have a clue; you’re just an accident that has already happened.  A big bang.  A mutation from a single-celled organism.  An apostrophe.

BUT - if you believe in God, then you may have a lot of work to do.  Because he certainly had a reason for causing you to exist, and it would behoove you to determine how you fit in with this amazing creation.

The poet W. H. Auden said,

We are here on earth to do good to others.  What the others are here for, I don’t know.

He’s got a point.  If your focus is on your role in this world, the others will take care of themselves. How many of us are more concerned with what others think of us, what others are enjoying, how others have offended us or what they have that we don’t?

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Doesn’t everyone want to be loved?

I think everyone does, but not everyone realizes it.  A lot of people don’t even understand what true love is. Love makes the world go ’round, but hate makes the world go ’round wobbily. Love is the fodder for countless songs of passion, vainly pledging fidelity to the current object of affection.

The Greeks had five different words for love, three of which are normally found in Christian teaching:

Eros (sensual love - root word for erotic)

Philia (friendship — like Philidelphia)

Agape (self-sacrificing love)

Truth be known, Agape is not exclusive to Christianity.  In the Greek it could mean being content with a good meal.

The two lesser-known words are

Storge (affection - “I love my children”)

Thelema (desire to achieve - “I’d love to get promoted”)

While the word “love” is used to address each of these concepts, in fact, we need all of them to make the world go ’round.  Daily doses of love leave no room for hate.  Our prudish position on sexual intimacy refuses to allow that same passion to be the driving force for our exciting, sometimes grueling, journey, yet we freely use the word passionate to describe our various loves for things.

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