A Word from the Wise

From William Sloan Coffin's Credo

All saving ideas are born small. 
God comes to earth as a child so that we can finally grow up, 
which means that we can 
stop blaming God 
for being absent when we ourselves were not present, 
stop blaming God 
for the ills of the world as if we had been laboring to cure them, 
and stop making God 
responsible for all the thinking and doing we should be undertaking on our own. 

I've said it before and will probably say it many times again: 
God provides minimum protection, maximum support - 
support to help us grow up, 
to stretch our minds and hearts until they are as wide as God's universe. 
God doesn't want us narrow minded, priggish, and subservient, 
but joyful and loving, 
as free for one another 
as God's love was freely poured out for us at Christmas 
in that babe in the manger.

From Credo, by William Sloan Coffin, Westminster John Knox Press, pg. 10