For Heschel, God is not our back-up position in case our own life plans and hopes get into trouble. God is the one who calls us to live into the gift that is our life by being a hopeful, life-giving presence in a world of despair. For example, here are the words I read this morning, going through a book I bought in 1993, of all places, in the huge Hanover Book Store in Hanover, New Hampshire, while staying with our good friends Bob and Becky.
"There is a loneliness in us that hears. When the soul parts from the company of the ego and its retinue of petty conceits; when we cease to exploit all things but instead pray the world's cry, the world's sigh, our loneliness may hear the living grace beyond all power.
We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light."
This is Jewish wisdom, rooted in ancient traditions of 'hesed' and 'shalom', mercy and flourishing, faithfulness and peace, love for the world because made by and sustained by the steadfast love of God which endures forever. Heschel's concern for compassion and justice, human security through humane behaviour draws from deep wells of that Jewish tradition. They are traditions without which our modern world has become a much more dangerous place.
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