Vincent Van Gogh once said, "The best way to know God is to love many things." I love this quote. I love this idea because God made everything. So by exposing ourselves to the world and all that is in it, we are learning more about who God is. If we stay in our bubble, if we stay locked in our tunnel vision views, if we stay closed minded then we are missing out on so many beautiful things! If we never leave our houses or our neighborhood, we would never see the ocean or the stars or meet wonderful people. All of these things teach us more about who God is. The more we know about the world and the more we love the things in it, the more we know about and love God too.
Last night in small group, we were talking about what we loved about our Catholic faith. One of my absolute favorite parts about Catholicism is how open we are to other faith traditions. We learn about them. We don't judge them or try to convince them that they are wrong. We respect and value their opinion, their takes on life. We learn from them by learning about them.
Often times I think people stick with what they know. We stay in our comfortable bubble and fear things that are different. We fear people who look different or who were raised different. But I think once we step outside that circle we are exposed to a world much more beautiful than we could have ever thought. We are exposed to different ways of thinking, different opinions, different ideas. God is big. Bigger than we will ever be able to comprehend. The more we experience, the more we learn about God.
So I urge you, don't be afraid to face people who believe things different than what you believe. You might not agree on politics or social issues. You may not agree on religion or spirituality. Quite frankly, you may not agree on much. But listen and learn with an open, nonjudgmental ear. In doing so, you might learn something about your infinite, loving God.
Until next time,
Mel
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