God says "I have given you this gift, and it is a real gift. I want you to love me freely, and I will do anything, anything up to giving up the most precious thing I could say I have, my son, to prove I love you. Please come back."

God is trying to woo us into a love affair with God.

Africans believe in something that is difficult to render in English. We call it ubuntu, botho. It means the essence of being human. You know when it is there and when it is absent. It speaks about humaneness, gentleness, hospitality, putting yourself out on behalf of others, being vulnerable. It embraces compassion and toughness. It recognizes that my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

We are made by God, we are made like God, we are made for God.

We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

Sadly, the things that we have set out as being worth striving for are not ultimately the things that satisfy human longings. And why not? Because we are practically the ultimate paradox: the finite made for the infinite.