God Doesn’t Hate Us, If He Did He Wouldn’t Have Made Our Hearts So Brave

This is a reprint of an arti­cle I wrote a year ago. It’s about love. And in this sea­son of love and hope, we pray for mag­na­nim­ity of heart.

The word mag­nan­i­mous, really comes from two words: magna (or great) and anima (or spirit). When we are mag­nan­i­mous, we are asked to have a great spirit: A spirit of love. A spirit that is so much greater than the things that may hap­pen to us. A spirit that is able to pause, and see things from a greater, longer per­spec­tive. A spirit that does not have to win all the time. A spirit that can allow pain, and not be destroyed, but rather, made even stronger by it.

This is the spirit of the God who became child and one of us. This is the spirit we cel­e­brate this Christmas.

Merry Christ­mas everyone!

The title is from a movie I saw a year ago. The Feast of Love is a movie about the dif­fer­ent facets of love, and answers real life ques­tions about suf­fer­ing and fear and hope.

Here is an exchange between Harry Steven­son (Mor­gan Free­man) and Bradley Thomas (Greg Kin­n­ear) after a par­tic­u­larly tragic event happened.

Harry Steven­son: God is either dead, or he despises us.
Bradley Thomas: You don’t really believe that.
Harry Steven­son: Maybe. I saw the most remark­able thing just now. I wan­dered into the sta­dium, I thought I was alone… but down on the 50 yard line there was a cou­ple. They were mak­ing love. I watched for longer then I should have. I was envi­ous… and then I felt sorry for them. There’s so much they don’t know; heart­break they can’t even imag­ine.
Bradley Thomas: [sighs] Well, even if they knew, it wouldn’t change any­thing.
Harry Steven­son: How so?
Bradley Thomas: Chloe knew what was going to hap­pen to Oscar.
Harry Steven­son: She knew?
Bradley Thomas: She did. She went to some psy­chic lady, pre­dicted the whole thing.
Harry Steven­son: She believed her?
Bradley Thomas: Yes, Harry, she did. She didn’t run away, she didn’t crawl into a hole. She found them a house. She threw away her birth con­trol and mar­ried him. God doesn’t hate us, Harry. If he did, he wouldn’t have made our hearts so brave.

Some­times we do not under­stand the many things that hap­pen to us. And yes, it is so easy to blame some­body else for our own mis­er­able life. Most of the time, we blame God. When some­thing really tragic hap­pens we think that God has for­saken us or just plain hate us.

But we look all around us and there is evi­dence of great love amidst great suf­fer­ing. Of peo­ple hold­ing on to hope amidst evi­dence to the con­trary. Of par­ents lov­ing despite the pain. Of peo­ple giv­ing for­give­ness and find­ing hap­pi­ness in return. Of peo­ple sol­dier­ing on despite great affliction.

Sev­eral years ago, I met an extra­or­di­nary woman in Sapang Palay, Bula­can, the Philip­pines who had 12 chil­dren. They lived in an aban­doned house that they found, cleaned up and made their own. Her hus­band works in a small con­struc­tion com­pany get­ting a daily wage lower than the min­i­mum rate. She laun­ders clothes and cleans houses to aug­ment the mea­ger income they have. I’ve known a lot of poor peo­ple in Sapang Palay and Pay­atas, but they’re the poor­est I know.

She told me how hun­gry they can get some­times. Some­times, she would just tell their kids to fend for them­selves because they don’t have food any­more. One time, she only had half a kilo rice left, and she had to make rice gruel (lugaw) so all 14 of them could eat.

I decided to spend one Christ­mas din­ner with them. They knew I was com­ing and they were prob­a­bly stressed about my visit but I assured them that I was bring­ing food to add to their Noche Buena din­ner. So when I came, I brought 2 kilos of corned beef and 2 kilos of spaghetti noo­dles and sauce. She met me at the door­way and I gave the food so she could pre­pare it. She was teary eyed, because she told me her hus­band came home that day with­out his salary and they don’t have any­thing else prepared.

As 12 mid­night neared, she put our food on the table but she pre­pared another plate which she painstak­ingly filled with some of our food. I asked her what she was doing, think­ing it was a fam­ily rit­ual they do every year. She said she was going to give some of our food to the neigh­bor; the neigh­bor also works in the same con­struc­tion com­pany as her hus­band and he also didn’t receive his salary.

We ate our spaghetti and our corned beef and it became a feast of the Emmanuel. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they give us a glimpse of the heart of God.

God doesn’t hate us. If He did, he wouldn’t have made our hearts so brave.