I met G.R. hepped up on coffee and a late night of reading Hebrews. Glen and I had been discussing the necessary finitude of time as a delimiting factor in evil. The insight we arrived at – which we considered quite significant (too much coffee) – has been obscured by the more than 40-year interval. We assumed that there was a consumptive element – thanatology – connected with God which is itself an effect of God’s presence. Alone that early morning, reading Hebrews 12:29 – “our God is a consuming fire” – I felt I had hit upon scriptural verification of this principle. I entered Glen’s room after 1 a.m. with, “OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE.” G.R., Glen’s roommate, had only recently returned from refueling helicopters for the Army in Vietnam. . . Continue reading “Curing Despair Through a Community of Love”