Wailing and grinding of teeth

The parables in the Gospel of Matthew from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today bring two or three items to mind which inform us of the nature of God and of our need to be inspired to work at understanding more of what a relationship with the Divine means. The wailing and grinding of teeth is the image of the fate of we who are complex creatures who are simultaneously living as children of God and as creatures of the earth. The fact of our reality and the understanding we have from sources “old and new” that Good and Evil cannot coexist is difficult to process. The obedience of Moses to the instructions of God around the reverence to the tabernacle contains the interesting placement of the seat of mercy above the Ark of the Covenant. This understanding of the mercy of God and the praise of the psalmist for the steadfast and detailed love of God suggests that our wailing and grinding of teeth is our response to the separation we may interject in our intimacy with God through our pursuit of self centered goals.