I remember as a child that many of my friends received a monetary allowance from their parents, either on a weekly or a monthly basis, to give them an understanding of money management.  Although my siblings and I never received such an allowance, we were given a form of allowance sometimes for performing certain chores for grandparents and other relatives.  Without commenting on the effectiveness of this type of allowance with regards to child-rearing and instilling at a young age a sense of money management, I do believe there are some types of allowances given to children that provide life-long lessons.  In general, the term ‘allowance’ seems tied to both something that is granted by one to another and the intention of this granting or allowance to hopefully benefit the one granted the allowance, and perhaps further.  This is an allowance of trust that has a divine quality.

These days I have the privilege of watching some of my close friends raising their children, and I am struck with both curiosity and wonderment at what I observe.  Many times I have seen a child impassioned with wonder, and sometimes frustration, ask a parent a question about why a particular action is inappropriate or perhaps about a new experience.  It is an enlivened seeking that I am witnessing and it is almost unbearably delightful to watch.  I have also witnessed a parent encourage or chastise a child for some type of behavior.  I have seen a child cry in remorse over having displeased the parent, and I have seen a parent shed tears for possibly not handling a situation in the best way possible.

What I have noticed is that no matter the circumstances, the most striking aspect is how the child and the parent(s) relate to one another.  The trust level becomes apparent.  When the basis for the parent/child relationship is trust, it seems that whether the child (or even the parent) acts in a way that seems inappropriate or overwhelming, the lasting effect is founded on trust.   Trust seems to provide an allowance that is not based on earned credits or even permissive behavior, but rather on an unconditional relationship that allows for all, within an overriding context of loving acceptance.  I admire this in parents and children, and lament the terrible tragedy for those children/parents in our world who have not experienced this.

In Acts 17: 15, 22-18:1, we hear the wonderful address by Paul to the Athenians at the Aeropagus wherein he expounds on the nature of God in our lives and in our world.  This theology-packed scripture passage gives some powerful imagery concerning the notion of our God in relationship with all of us.

“He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ “

 How amazing that we are considered the ‘offspring’ of God, i.e., children of God.  And how true it is that we seek and even grope for God in all our lives, whether we realize it or not.  Just like our own children, whom we watch as they wonder and seek out new life and understanding in their experiences.  And just how close to us is this God whom “we live and move and have our being?”  We seek and grope for Someone who, as Paul tells us, is not just right next to us, but actually is the Holy Environment of our lives – all of creation, from the smallest stone to the farthest star and all life in between.

My somehow distant and spiritually close relative Pierre Teilhard de Chardin described this as the “Divine Milieu,” that Holy Space that is infused with God at its center and all around.  It’s like God is so close to us that we are in God.  Could this be another way to look at what we call Incarnation?  It’s a way of being in relationship with God wherein everyone and everything becomes a touchstone for an experience of the Divine.  This is the Christ allowance!

The Gospel of John, JN 16: 12-15, has Jesus trying to describe the beautiful dynamics of this relationship to his disciples when he tells them of the Spirit of truth that:

… will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine;

for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”

Now we are being told that the very life of God, which is what we mean by the Trinity (Father, Son and Spirit) is our life.  We belong to God in the way the persons of the Trinity belong to one another.  The “taking from what is mine and declaring it to you,” is the truest sense of belonging.  In our be-longing, or longing to BE, we are allowed to fully participate, engage, appreciate, and relate in the Sacred Life of God!  If this is not mind-blowing and ‘unbearable’ to hear much less comprehend, I don’t know what is!

But, at the same time, it is simply a relationship of trust – it is the parent and the child and the love between them, fraught with joy and pain, love and struggle, patience and mercy, vulnerability and responsibility!  It’s our daily lives with our universe, our world, with each other.  We have only to allow ourselves to take full advantage of this allowance, – this granting of relationship that inter-connects us to each other in God.  The allowance that we see in the trusting relationship between a child and parent(s), between a committed couple, a friendship in love –all of these are high marks of the God whom we seek, but more importantly perhaps the GOD who is desperately seeking us!  Easter then becomes an eternal season of Relationship, i.e., a Divine Allowance!

Peace

Thomas

(originally published May 3, 2016)