I have long been uncomfortable with the word, if not the notion of a God. Yet, I have also always been pulled towards that word and that idea. Traditional notions of a God who listens and responds to my individual situation is difficult for my mind to embrace. In my ongoing quest, I recently read Nancy Abrams book “A God That Could Be Real”. She proposes a radical understanding of God as not only the deepest aspirations of each individual – but also as the deepest aspirations of all humanity. We are the only beings that we know of who can imagine and see and desire to work for something better or different than what we have at any given time. When we think of something like “turning our life over to God”; she would say that we are longing to turn our lives over to our best understanding of how we ourselves want to be. We want to be who we most deeply are capable of being. We want to use our minds and our situation to the best that we can imagine. That idea itself is God – that we have deep within us the ability to imagine and to act on our own best behalf and on the best vision we have for all of humanity. I can live with that God. I can pray to that God. A God who dwells in the cave of my own heart and yet is shared and is more vast than I can imagine. This God does not have a “will” or the ability to “change” anything. God is not a being but yet “exists” in the deep aspirations that we all have. When I call out to this God, I call out to remember the larger context in which I exist. Here is a poem I wrote about this;
The God Too Vast
The God too vast
to be captured
in the cage of a word
interests me.
The God living
beneath words.
Living in the cave
of my own heart
simultaneously
in vastness
beyond knowing.
Silent holiness evident
everywhere
yet impossible to grasp.
To that God
it’s hard to pray.
I need to hold
a smooth stone,
a feather, a shell
or feel my own heartbeat
as a doorway
to that God.
So intimate,
vast,
silent,
so hard to pin down.