God

The story of God's embodying as Jesus in order to do recompense for his own distancing from and treatment of the humanimals he created makes more sense to me than the story that he did so because of our screwups. By taking on a human life, suffering rejection, and dying young in the cruelest death, he acknowledged our situation by sharing it, taking it on personally, rising out of death anew with a fresh start -- the fresh start being a different relationship, forgiveness all the way around, especially with our forgiving of God. Now we have company, a compassionate, loving, and understanding God. One who truly knows what we are going through. No blame. No judgment. Forgiveness. All the way around. (On reading Jack Miles, "Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God.")