“In the course of these prayerful reflections, we have seen that to be God’s friend means to accept who we are by the very fact of being created in this world of ours. We are images of God, who mysteriously is three in one. God is relationship, is friendship, quite apart from anything God creates. We who are images of God, therefore, are made for relationships, made for friendship with God and with all that God creates.
“All of God’s creatures are in some way images of the Creator; perhaps this is why everything in this universe is related to everything else and depends on everything else. As noted earlier, other creatures in our world don’t have any choice except to be trees or roses or fish or birds. They, too, need to cooperate to live and flourish, but they do this seemingly without choice, at least as far as we can determine. Human beings must choose to act as creatures made in God’s image; this is the price and glory of freedom. As you engaged with me during the reading of this book, we were given the chance to be drawn more deeply into choosing to be who we are: images of God created for friendship with God, with all other humans, and with the whole of creation.
“In creating us as we are, God has asked us to cooperate consciously with God in bringing about God’s dream for creation. God has put great trust in us that we will choose to be who we are created to be. In effect, our choice is between being inhuman or human. In other words, God is not putting an added burden on us by asking us to cooperate in building up the kingdom of God and living out the grand story of creation; God is simply asking us to be who we are created to be. But we must choose to be human, not inhuman. This was the point Rodney Stark made in the lines cited in the last chapter: ‘Finally, what Christianity gave to its converts was nothing less than their humanity. In this sense virtue was its own reward.’ God, in creating us, gave us a chance to be human, which means to be humane, compassionate, loving, and creative, rather than their opposites.
“What we are asked to do, with God’s help, is foster cycles of positive development in our world that move us toward God’s dream. Here are some examples of such positive cycles. Parents care for their children and raise them to be caring, responsible, and humane citizens of our world, and the children do the same for their children. When neighbors are in need, we help them, and they, in turn, help others. We gather in organizations of varying size and complexity to foster a better life for everyone, and these organizations live beyond their creators to continue to do good.
“When I mentioned cycles of love, I was referring to these and other ways in which humans have used their gifts to move the world toward the kingdom of God. Such cycles of love are fostered by God’s Spirit, who is constantly trying to turn our hearts and minds toward acting to bring about the Beloved Community.”
