Love your enemies, do good,
and lend, expecting nothing in return.
Your reward will be great,
and you will be children of the Most High;
for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
Be merciful, just as God is merciful.
—Luke 6.35-36
God is pure kindness.
No anger, no hate,
no retribution.
No petulant need
to be proven right.
No need to be mean
to those who are mean.
God is no mere guy
who knows how to be nice
and how to be cruel—
no, God is the power of love itself,
the life-giving force
of pure kindness and mercy.
Be grateful that God is so kind to us,
who are ungrateful.
How strong our urge to dilute love
with something else.
What an affront to our judgment,
this infinite, unalloyed mercy!
The immensity of God’s kindness
destroys our tiny ideas
of right and wrong (mostly wrong),
this love so generous to the ungrateful.
Repeat this daily,
breathe continually this mystery:
God is kind to the wicked,
kind to the wicked,
kind to the wicked.
—February 19, 2019