I was talking to a friend about freedom and grace the other day. In her spiritual journey, she is moving out of law. She is doing what folks like to call, “deconstructing” .

As we talked it became obvious that she is afraid. Afraid that if she removes all the rules, she will self destruct.

You see, she has been told she was bad.

That’s what religion tells us.

And she’s done things in her past that she regrets. So, the “bad person” narrative was validated.

She’s afraid of this bad person inside her. This “sinner.” This monster.

This monster has been caged and subdued for years by her religious beliefs and rule systems. And she is afraid of grace because if she strips away the rules, the monster will be set free.

But what if the monster is god?

If there is such a thing as god, most folks - atheists and believers alike agree that god must be that which is infinite.

Which means there is nothing god is not and nowhere god is not.

God is in light, and love and beauty.

God is in darkness, and apathy and ugliness.

God is in our monsters and our demons.

The picture I chose for this post is a monster that was found in Borneo. No one knew what it was. They put it in a cage because they were afraid of it. It was wild and tried to chew and claw its way out of the cage. The image and story went viral. Finally, there were those who recognized this monster was just a bear that was sick with an illness that had caused it to lose its hair and look grotesque.

We are like that.

We encounter pain and suffering and it makes us sick. We lash out and act in monstrous ways. We look scary and grotesque to ourselves and to others. Our impulse is to cage that monster, to tame that monster. With laws, with religion, with dogmas and rules to follow and deeds to do. We can’t see the pain behind the monster. We can’t see that the monster is no monster at all. Just a lovely, suffering creature that needs food and nourishment, love and healing.

One of the metaphors of the crucifixion is that god is not separate from suffering.

God is the monster.