I wonder if we all have more than one concept of God. I think I do. There’s my mature, intellectual image of what God is and what my relationship with God *should* be. The God that I could describe and then rightfully claim that I didn’t get it right because God is ultimately indescribable. This is a loving God, a sustaining God. A God that guides rather than manipulates. The God within, a becoming God, a co-creator… And then there is the God I wish was there when I’m feeling lost in the chaos. This is the God of childhood. The Santa Claus God. The omnipotent God who can swoop in and fix all my problems. I don’t believe that is the way God is, but I sure wish it was so.
Category: Spiritual Page 7 of 8
Two quick reviews:
The Dark Knight – go see it! This is one movie that lives up to the hype. Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is delightfully creepy.
My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor is a memoir by a brain scientist who experienced her own stroke. Definitely a recommended read. It not only gives insight into how the brain works and those living with brain injuries, but for me it brings up the question whether God is a creation of our brain or if God is a higher power that the brain mysteriously knows how to plug into. It doesn’t provide any definitive answers but I love to contemplate such things 🙂
Peace!
I just finished reading the book “Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary” by Marcus Borg. If you lean toward progressive Christianity, then I highly recommend Borg. I’ve never been disappointed by one of his books and this one is no exception. I did find it somewhat repetitive with “The Last Week” which Borg co-wrote with John Dominic Crossan, but this is not surprising. After all, you can’t talk about Jesus without talking about what the death and resurrection stories mean. I don’t always agree with 100% of what Borg says, but it’s pretty close. His ideas are refreshing and hopeful. He’s also a professor and not a preacher and I like that perspective.
How do you hear what God is trying to say, if God is trying to say anything? I felt called to go to seminary and I’m glad I did. However, I was never sure if that calling included ministry or what kind of ministry. I’m at the point where I need to make some decisions… I’ve been trying to listen for God, but I’ve gotten no burning bush like Moses. So I’m going to do my best to make good decisions and if they’re the wrong decisions, God is just going to have to threaten me with a big fish or something like Jonah. To that end, I’m currently planning on switching to the MA degree instead of the MDiv degree I’d need to be an ordained minister. Being ordained just doesn’t feel right at this time. There’s things that I like about a pastor’s roles and things I don’t think I’m suited for… Is it the right decision? Am I just running scared? If I really am not called to be a pastor, does it make sense to continue in seminary at all? If I get the MA degree in Theology, where does that lead me? Hmmm… making decisions just leads to more questions… Where’s that dang burning bush?
I was thinking about this not too long ago… why do I believe there is a God? It was a little disconcerting to realize that I don’t have a very good answer. I googled the question to see if I could stumble on a good answer and what I found was pretty weak in my opinion. The answers I found other people giving seemed to be one of the following.
1. God calls us… This is perhaps the best answer for me. But it doesn’t really work if you’re trying to explain to someone else. And does a longing in me to connect to something bigger than me, something divine, really show that that something is there? Or could it just be an unfulfilled emotional need that doesn’t know how to express itself so it longs for the unknown.
2. Our world is so complex that someone must have created it… well, this argument simply doesn’t make sense to me. Ancient peoples attributed to God many things which we can now understand scientifically. This seems to be the same thing. We can’t understand what’s going on so it must be God.
3. So many people believe in God that God must exist… Well, I think there is at least something to this argument. We shouldn’t discount the experiences of millions of people over thousands of years. Of course, it doesn’t *prove* anything. I also believe humans have a great capacity to delude ourselves in order to maintain a semblance of order and security in our lives. I think many religious beliefs are rooted in this need for order.
So, why do I believe in God? I can’t give a definitive reason. I think we can neither prove that God does exist nor that God doesn’t exist. The arguments I’ve read about why God can’t exist seem just as weak to me as the arguments I’ve read that God does exist.
What I do believe is that humans are more than the sum of our physical parts. I find it hard to accept that we are nothing more than the elements that make up our bodies and charged by some electrical impulses in our brain. I guess that is more intuitive than scientific. But, if you can reject the machine model of humanity as insufficient, then spirituality to me is the quest for understanding what makes us more than a machine. Investigating this difference, what I might call our divine aspect, to me, is the spiritual journey that leads to God.
So I guess this is what it boils down to for me… if you believe in the machine model of humanity then I’ll never convince you there is a God. But if humankind is more than skin-clad machines, how can you not believe in God?
Of course, this says nothing about the nature of God… another good topic for another day…
For Lent, I’m going to lead a book study of “The Last Week” by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. I highly recommend this book. It taught me a lot about the Easter story. The book uses the Biblical book of Mark to walk through the 8 days of Holy Week (Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday). Just the first chapter alone is worth the price of the book as it gives new meaning to Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem on what we know as Palm Sunday. I’m looking forward to discussing the book with my church community.
Frankl, who is the subject of my class paper, was a psychologist and the founder of Logotherapy. He taught that humanity’s basic drive is to find meaning in life. This happens in one of three ways:
1) through a work (book, art, etc.) or deed
2) an experience or encounter (beauty of nature, love for another, etc.)
3) one’s attitude in the face of suffering (being able to see it as opportunity for growth, test of dignity, etc.)
Frankl himself was a Jew who survived four different concentration camps during World War II. His book “Man’s Search For Meaning” recalls his experiences there.
A couple of quotes from that book on the subject of Love:
“Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self.” (p. 58)
“Love is as primary a phenomenon as sex. Normally, sex is a mode of expression for love. Sex is justified, even sanctified, as soon as, but only as long as, it is a vehicle of love. Thus love is not understood as a mere side-effect of sex; rather, sex is a way of expressing the experience of that ultimate togetherness which is called love.” (p. 134)
Now, what got me thinking about these quotes was a political issue I mentioned below – gay marriage. Any argument I’ve heard against gay marriage has been in terms of religion. Most of those arguments are pretty weak and amount to some Christians declaring “the Bible says being gay is bad”. Well, plenty of Christians also support gay marriage, including the United Church of Christ, which as a denomination has voted to support gay marriage (even though individual UCC churches may still oppose it). I don’t even want to get into a Biblical argument – I probably won’t be able to convince anyone that way and they won’t be able to convert me to their view either. People will believe what they want to believe (especially when the beliefs are grounded in fear of otherness).
For me, marriage comes down to love (hence why I started thinking of the Frankl quotes). Why should some group of Christians dictate that I can’t marry the person I love? Frankly, my own Christian church would (and has) performed a same sex marriage. So, if my church recognizes such a marriage, why does the government refuse to recognize it in favor of opposing religious beliefs? What is the non-religious reason to deny gay marriage? I suppose even if you remove the Bible from the equation, people will still argue that recognizing gay marriage will destroy moral order and cause societies to collapse. Funny, though, that Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Massachusetts still seem to be standing and have not fallen into the general moral chaos that some would predict. So, why? Why is my love less worthy than the love of a conservative Christian? Well, of course, it isn’t.
In a previous post, I said gay marriage wasn’t a major issue. But, I think it really is. If a candidate isn’t supporting gay marriage then, for me, they are supporting one religious view point over others because they think it will get them votes (unless someone can give me a non-religious reason to deny same sex marriage). And in the process of endorsing government favored religious view points, they are not recognizing the worth of my love – my very humanity.
I don’t want to propose we blame God for evil. However, if one says God cannot be liable for evil, does it follow that God cannot be credited for good as well? Does that make God passive in the world?
I wouldn’t say that God plays no part in evil. I would like to propose that evil results from human separation from God. It’s more than just a simple human choice. Maintaining a connection with the Holy is how we avoid committing evil acts (on an individual basis, anyway)… that divine connection in turn produces the good stuff… maybe this is too simple, but it works better for me.
God as a divine Santa Claus seems to be alive and well in the minds of Christians today. A week or so ago, someone from a local church left a pamphlet on my door… this pamphlet warns me that my joy or sorrow for all eternity depends upon my answer to the question “am I saved?” For me, this is a message of fear and intimidation from an extremely limited God. This is not the God I know and, frankly, I don’t think I’d ever want to know this God.
As for what I believe… God is a God of Love and the “kingdom of God” is not about some afterlife but what we are making of this life here and now. Saved to me means I have a relationship with the Holy, I’m in touch with the Divine within me, and I’m trying to live a life of love as modeled by Jesus. It has nothing to do with what happens after I die.
Back to the pamphlet… it’s message: “you are a sinner”, “you are condemned to death”, “eternal separation from God in Hell”… this God is obviously checking his list of who’s naughty and who’s nice. If you’re one of the naughty ones… watch out! Is this a God anyone would really want to serve? A God who would burn in Hell billions of people (including good honorable people) just because they didn’t believe in Jesus? Why would I be interested in that God? But wait… the pamphlet says if I have doubts about this, just “do not trust your feelings”. I guess I’m just supposed to close my mind and blindly do what I’m told to do… no thinking, no feeling… don’t need any of that because this church has found all the answers for me.
Oh well, this message both amuses and saddens me. This is the face of Christianity that too many see. How do we better show them the God of Love and Hope that I see when I read the story of Jesus?
Two weeks of seminary classes done… I’m enjoying the classes so far. The Hebrew Bible class is interesting and the History of Christian Thought class is, well, history… 🙂 The Theories of Change class has really piqued my interest though, at least for the moment. Our first assigned reading is sections about Mircea Eliade from the book “The Archetype of Initiation” by Robert L. Moore (disclaimer: Moore is also the professor teaching this class). The readings discuss the creation of transforming sacred space and the need for rituals and ritual leaders. I find this fascinating as a way of answering the question of how does humankind find the divine. It makes one think about what Christian worship services could be but often aren’t: a way of meeting the divine to transform ourselves into beings meeting our full potential. Or at least beings on the path to living out our full potential… Eventually, I want to go back and read this entire book. This may be a topic that helps clarify where I’m going on my own life journey. We shall see…
I see my interest in shamanistic practices in this same vein… practices which can be used to connect with the divine in a transforming way. I’ve signed up for some advanced training in shamanic healing methods and I’m getting excited about it. How can I use this to transform and heal myself, others, and the natural world? How can this be integrated into my journey along the path of the Christian tradition? I think these are exciting questions!