This morning during my contemplative prayer time, these words came to me over and over: “YOU are God.”

God is love. God is the source of everything that is good. God is God, and we are not … hence all the humanness of our shared reality.

God is.

As the saying goes in the Black church: “God is good all the time. All the time, God is good.”

YOU are God. These words grounded my heart during my silent prayer this morning, as my mind wandered to the many troubles plaguing our human and earth community. God is God. Those humans in power and those abusing power are not God.

Later, I found myself reflecting on the character Groot in the Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Just as the one phrase, “YOU are God,” repeated over and over again in my heart during my meditation this morning, Groot has just one phrase: “I am Groot.”

Yet this phrase has a surplus of meaning. In the Marvel universe, Groot is a a member of the Flora Colossi, a race of treelike alien beings from Planet X. Highly intelligent creatures, Flora Colossi have a stiff larynx that is only capable of making a sequence of sounds that we hear as “I am Groot.” His friend Rocket apparently understands Groot’s language, and helpfully offers his interpretation skills for the benefit of all. What sounds to us like three simple words can carry a variety of meanings, depending on the context and delivery. Without giving away any serious spoilers, at one point Groot’s sequence of sounds meaningfully shifts to “We are Groot” after a moment of self-sacrificing love for his friends.

Now, WE are not God. Yet we are made in the image and likeness of God. We are made to love. We are made to be and do good. We are made to care for creation and one another. We are not good all the time, but all the time we are called back to love and goodness through the mercy of God. And for that, I am very grateful.