God

I know what you’re thinking, pretty audacious of me to mention the Big Guy so early on in our blogging relationship!  I’m certainly the last person to expose my thoughts on a universal spirit, master of the universe, higher power, or as I call him, God.  I use the pronoun him, not because I assume that any omnipotent power has to be male, but because as a Christian, I see God as the Father of all creation.  Why my weariness in discussing the subject of God? It’s not that I think of myself as an evil or satanically possessed person,  just that I’m “no man of the cloth” who has spent years in Seminary or even that I studied theology in college.  In fact, I may or may not have been told that my participation in Confirmation classes was no longer welcomed as an adolescence!  It was only after my grandfather, from whom I get my name and had the utmost respect, strongly admonished me, that I decided to give it another shot.  With that as the background, I felt it important to give you a glimpse at the spiritual worldview that I bring to the table so that you could get a sense of my perspective throughout our discussions.

So as Dishwalla sang in their hit song from 1995, Country Blue Cars, let me “Tell You all my thoughts on God.”   While I mentioned my background being Christian, a confirmed Catholic in fact, I have to be honest and say that I am not practicing so to speak.  When I do go to church, which is about 10 or so times a year, it’s typically at a Catholic church or a non-denominational Christian church.  I do, however, attend at a spiritual 12 step meeting almost daily with rare exceptions.  I don’t go to church or meetings with the goal of checking the box so to speak, but to improve my conscious contact with God.  After all, as an omnipresent and benevolent power, I believe God is right there waiting for us to reach out.  Or as I’ve read in some 12 step literature, “God doesn’t make too hard of terms with those who seek him.”

Before I go any further, let me paraphrase a friend I’ve made over the last few years who said one of the most insightful things that I remember hearing which mirrors my beliefs.  In one of our get togethers she said: “God is in me and God is in you, so to serve God I have to serve you and be kind to myself.”  I’ll give you a second to take that in, after all it’s been probably five years since I heard my friend and that statements’ powerful meaning is still slowly reaching me.  While I mentioned that I don’t exactly consider myself to be a devout Catholic and could surely benefit from a bit of bible study, I do recall the Bible referencing that man was made in God’s image.  What better way to build something similar to an original than to use a piece of the model as a building block.  I think my friend may be on to something!  It seems to me that most people are always looking for a sign or some type of spiritual directive on which to design their life.  What could be more spiritual or God-driven than a life of service, even better, in accordance with a view of all living things containing a piece of God, this can be accomplished simply by treating all God’s creations with kindness.  I know, seems too easy.  But what if all we have to do to carry out God’s will for us is to be kind?

I hope that you’re not taking my saying that God is within each and every one of us to mean that self-reflection is the best route to find him.  Instead, I find that it is through others that I’m best able to commune with God.  After all, according to the United Nations the global population is near 8 billion people.  In using logically based connective thinking, that’s almost 8 billion chances to interact with God, or at least a piece of him!  As I often do, I’m already poking a hole in my argument (if only in my mind).  “If your God is a loving, benevolent, force; the creator of love and nothing else, how do you explain all the pain, disaster, and apparent evil in the world”, rhetorically asks the internal critic?  While I seem to be proven wrong with this point: I assure you that I’ve debated this point countless times internally…I guess just me and myself arguing again!

The catch here, as there seems to be with almost any definitive conclusion I reach, is that a God whose only attribute is perfect love created a world which includes disaster, illness, and even apparent evil?  And what a catch it is!  After all, simply glancing at a newscast or seemingly any given page of a daily newspaper presents events and circumstances ripe with the inverse of love.  Unfortunately these disturbing situations and seemingly hate filled human actions don’t jive well with my concept of a benevolent, all powerful God.  So while my spiritual, or Theistic views don’t completely fall in line with the teachings of the bible, the widely held by many religions idea of living beings having Free Will helps.  Having designed this complicated universe and knowing the countless experiential opportunities living beings were destined to have, God created life as we know it: The process of joy and sorrow providing  vast learnings best reinforced through success and failure, ease and struggle; with His constant companionship available to all!

It seems rather odd that I would interrupt my spirituality-based rant with a pop culture reference, but as is usually the case, a movie quote fits here and really moves the discussion ahead nicely.   In Cameron Crowes’ 2001 released Vanilla Sky, a mind-bending film that IMDB describes as a Psychological Thriller; the all -star cast (Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz), life as an entirely mind created concept is explored.  So as not to turn this writing into a movie review let me get to the quote,  David Aames’ (Tom Cruise) and the main character, best friend Brian is fond of saying that, “without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain’t as sweet.”  On its’ surface Brian’s line has a rather elementary underlying meaning: It is the contrast between any and all things that allows us to perceive differences.  If everything was the same or static all the time; would we ever notice anything, let alone appreciate the blessings in our lives?

While not spoken in exactly the same way, or even in the same language, this line from Vanilla Sky closely resembles the ancient Chinese Philosophical idea of Yin and Yang in it’s application to life:  Seemingly contrasting forces are often interrelated/interdependent in the natural world.  I’ll resist my urge to belittle myself by contrasting myself to the great Chinese philosopher Confucius in both wisdom and authority of thought with a joke here!  Let me end my discussion of that Supreme Being, Creator, I know as God with where I find majesty in a seeming contradiction.  Returning to “the catch” I referenced in the concept of a loving and benevolent God creating a world including “ disaster, illness, and even apparent evil”; what’s up with that?  To even further cloud the image of God as the creator of literally everything is this: Why would this power who represents only love even create humans with the distressing and often problematic feelings of fear, anxiety, and even hate?  As the Frank Lloyd Wright of all things, what was God’s thought when designing us to feel negative emotions manifesting them through adverse human experience?  It certainly seems that it would have been a lot easier for God to predestine his children to a lifetime off stress-free bliss, absent of tragedy.  While I don’t have a pop culture reference or even an ancient Chinese thought/concept to neatly summarize my conception of God and explain the apparent paradox of Him…here goes.

Being all-knowing and certainly having super-human insight, God knows that we would not find a life without challenge, and yes, even some adverse emotion, fulfilling.  After all, as much as I enjoy a nice vacation or even spending just a couple of hours relaxing with a good book, I have to admit that neither generate the satisfaction of meeting a challenge or feeling of service.  Although we all seem to cling to the thought of a Powerball jackpot that brings along a life of leisurely joy as being the destiny resulting in maximum pleasure, although indeed blissful, we may find the outcome lacking in self-actualization.  God designed us to find true joy and the ultimate fulfillment in overcoming circumstances and aiding others to do the same.  In his infinite wisdom, God manifested a world and ecosystem of life where opportunities for true learning and growth abound.  For as the Saint Anthony Prayer beautifully states:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

At the risk of committing outright heretical blasphemy, let’s view this prayer in relation to our quote from Vanilla Sky (yes, I know, a Tom Cruise movie from 2001!), or perhaps more appropriately, the concept of Yin and Yang.  It may be an oversimplification, but in the interest of brevity, upon further inspection aren’t all the precursors’ to the service/gifts bestowed and ultimately returned to the giver, seen as “bitter”, or at least adverse?  I mean, right in its’ first line, St. Anthony’s first request brings both sides of perhaps the weightiest of all emotional coins: “Where there is hatred, let me sow love”.  Bringing this analogy to an ultimate blasphemy laced, present day version would be to create a “Vanilla Sky” prayer that contained the line; “Where there is bitter, let me bring the sweet.”

I have to add something before I wrap up my thoughts on God in a nice little gift box: Forgive me Father for I have sinned; I juxtaposed St. Anthony’s prayer with a quote from a 21st century movie, a Tom Cruise psychological thriller at that!

With the insight into human development and the overall experience of living to be had in His creation coupled with lifeforms having free will resulted in the world we live: A world where true joy comes from serving others to surmount obstacles and walk through distressing situations.  For it is not just that internal satisfaction results from such circumstances, but in these trials we find invaluable learning take place and interpersonal relationships birthed and flourish!  What a relief to know that true joy is found not in perfection or smooth sailing, but in the work of accepting life’s challenges and helping others to do the do the same.