Skinned Knees and Hurt Feelings Build Character

One of the things Chad does is raise children. Here he shares an anecdote of hiking up a mountain with his kids. Through analogy, and reference to the work Divine Providence, Chad explores ideas about the Divine perspective when caring for His Human children. This essay comes across as humorous and light hearted while conveying satisfyingly grounded philosophical conclusions. -Editor

Lately I have been thinking about the Lord as the Perfect Parent and Divine Providence as His consistent implementation of a flawless parenting philosophy based on the everlasting mercy of His Divine Love and Wisdom! I like this approach because it helps me think of Him in a more intimate way: He is the Person who has been in my life from the very beginning, making things work and loving me unconditionally—rather than my boss, or my coach, or my best buddy or some of the other perfectly acceptable ways of thinking about God. What I like best about this concept of the Lord is that, being a parent myself, it helps me: understand the limited nature of my own freedom; recognize some of the ways that the Lord is raising me toward heaven; and accept that I cannot grow up to be an angel unless the Lord lets me learn from my own mistakes and the mistakes of others.

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A Parable for the Future

Its difficult to summarize what Dylan does in this piece. You should probably just read it. The whole thing has the tone of challenge and asks New Church people to expand their thinking, to not assume that they are entitled, and to expect the manifestation of the Lord's presence on earth to keep evolving and out pacing any of our own expectations. He also promises us a sequel.

The world is still evolving.

I think those of us steeped in the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg tend to lose sight of that. We're understandably focused on the 18th century, that great event some two-hundred and fifty years ago when Heaven bent down and touched the Earth for only the second or third time in its multi-billion year life span; that brief embrace that left us with a tangible impression of the beautiful, spiritual reality perched just beneath our time-and-space mammalian existence. And yes, it deserves such focus. Cryptic only in its girth and intellectual rigor, a careful study of the Writings promises its readers a consistent, comprehensive blue print of the Lord's intentions for the human race. It fills in historical and theological gaps that the Christian world has fought with for millennia. It offers hope, and a plan of action. Freed from dogmatic constriction and endlessly interpretable parables, the Writings also feel true. And we have them now. Awesome.

And we've had them now for two-hundred and fifty years.

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