Belief

I recently read a wonderful article by the Irish poet and theologian, Padraig O’Tuama where he talked about belief and how he says he lives in the “room next door” to God.  This got me thinking about my own answer to the question. “Do you believe in God?” 

This is always a tricky question to answer – for any of us.  What does the word “believe” mean?   What does the word “God” mean?  Like O’Tuama, I sort of like living next door to the question.  I want to check in now and then, to remain friendly, yet I don’t place myself easily in the column of “believers”.  I have come to calling myself a non-theist… which sort of conveniently skips around the question.  I once wrote a paper entitled “Circling Around the Dream of a God”.

The fact is that there are many questions that I spend more time pondering than the question of my belief in a God.  How do I live close to the highest vision of my life?  What sustains me when I am experiencing difficulty?  Whose hands are God’s hands?  How can I open my heart more readily?  What matters?  How can I put my feather weight on the scale of justice?  etc.etc.

I have written a couple of poems about this which I offer you.  Would like to hear your comments about where the word God lands in your life.

There are many of us

who live next door

to holiness.  Perhaps

it is more common

than you’d expect.

Rain falls.

The sun comes out.

Disaster befalls.

Cures happen.

Because we live

in this miraculous

natural world

which I do

believe in.

~Penny Hackett-Evans

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.

~Penny Hackett-Evans