What Is God To Me
Do we have to die to be in heaven and with God or is it all around us? I would like to argue that we are with God and to be present and live for the present, rather than what may come after life, is how we make a real impact on this earth. Hell and monsters are all around us in the shape of sadness, evil, fear, and hate. Heaven, therefore, surrounds us in the joy of pursuing being present with love and peace.
We cannot define God. It is neither male or female. I feel it is so ignorant of us to try to assign such a constrictive label to such an elusive concept. Although it may be translation of older text that does this, I would like to refer to it as a genderless concept. Does It even exist in any physical or spiritual form? I don’t have a particular religion I subscribe to anymore but I would like to describe my ideas and my spirituality. Mine is one of pure awe of the universe and one of being at peace with the unknown. I use the word God as this concept and “it” to name God. This is how our culture understands it. It could also be Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, Al Aziz, the Lord, and dozens of other names.
We cannot comprehend the higher powers although we try. And humans fight and destroy lives over the most insignificant of details. Kingdoms crumble over defending their versions of it. We try to define its desires. Does it have a Devine will and plan? Are fate and predestination real? Alternatively, did it create the world and sit back and merely allow events to unfold? Does It intervene sometimes and allow pain at other times? Is it all benevolent, all-good or is evil also a characteristic of it? Is it all powerful? If so, does it just allow evil to occur? Do we actually have choices or the illusion of choices? Does it bend to the selfish prayers of a tiny being on the earth, one planet of possibly millions in the universe? Do we have to know these answers and believe we are right to enter the gates of eternal bliss after death? Will we then be with God or are we just missing that we already are with God?
God is the way nature works out in both its mechanical, intricate ways and also it’s chaotic, terrifying ways. God is the hunted prey scared for its life and the powerful beast that hunts its prey. God is the pastor. God is the murderer. God is the healing doctor. God is the child with cancer. God is the homeless drug addict. God is the woman who gives the homeless a blanket and a meal. God is the man that just passes him by.
Are these humans evil? Are they good? Are they predestined? Are they consequences of choice upon choice made by generations before us? We don’t HAVE to answer these or even feel comfortable with the answers others give us. We can’t. We need to be ok with IT being undefined. God, if there is such a concept, is just it. And it is just the earth, the moon, and the stars around us. God is what happens in this universe. God is when galaxies are formed that we will never discover. God is the “Big Bang.” It is the way the earth travels in a predictable pattern along with the other planets and their moons around the sun. God is the explosions of gases that create a star. God is the meteor flying through space that could destroy an entire planet but somehow misses earth. God is the lightening that strikes. God is the morning dew on the grass glistening in the sun. God is the fault lines in the earth’s crust created when massive earthquakes reshape a land. God is the crystals and precious jewels that form in the rocks and caves in the earth. God is the undefined creatures in the deepest, darkest corners of the oceans. God is the microscopic bacteria in the stagnant water sitting in a lonely hole in the ground. God is the wars that rage on over centuries trying to define exactly who it is. The most evil of deeds have come from trying to define it. The most humble and beautiful deeds have been done in its name. God is the timing when two people that have unmeasurable chemistry collide. God is the beauty that love creates and the generations of children and their children.
This is true enlightenment to my mind. When we can admit that we are tiny specs in the concepts of space and time. Our opinions of God are even less than specs. God is the beauty, the bold, the ugly, the mess, the chaos and the perfection that is the universe. If I can add some joy and beauty to it, I have added to our heaven. This is my spirituality.
