Day 365: God is Unknowable/Knowable, There/Not There, Alive/Dead

God the Father 04 (Photo credit: Waiting For The Word)

This is the last day of Finding God in 365 Days! For the coming week or so, I will be in another country visiting family after an almost 2 year absence, so I am looking forward to the relaxation and and the fun. But before I go, I had to comment on this, the last day of Finding God in 365.

It would seem that EVERYONE has their own opinion about the world and God. Religion, like politics, is a divider of families and communities, mainly because we cannot agree on definition and purpose or even ceremony or ritual.

My conclusion, after a year, is that we can find God wherever we wish to. But….to posit a God that is omnipotent, yet without human emotion or need, omnipresent yet without action on any event, or omniscient yet without transparency of knowledge is no God to worry ourselves about. Why should we? We are not privy to the mystery if such a God exists! I have learned to take what I can believe and leave the rest for theologians to wrestle with.

I think that what most people fear in life, myself included, is a lack of meaning for existing. We fear reaching death without having lived for a purpose. We must create a God “out there” that validates our existence, that listens to our anguish and joy, and comforts us when we are weak, sad, or indignant. We want to have a pat on the back at the end of it and a voice telling us our life was not wasted and get that stamp of heavenly approval. It is not a sham to create such a God for ourselves, if that is indeed what WE do, because it comforts us and hopefully makes us better people. Perhaps…just perhaps it is “That of God” doing the creating in us.

I firmly believe that what IS a sham is to insist that our version of God and of how the world works is the only version there is. What is a sham is to define strict rules of conduct and claim that the God that prescribes them desires it of us. What is a sham is charging money for access to wisdom or claiming that wisdom can only be had by a certain, special, initiated few. Capitalizing or economizing spirituality is preying on our weaknesses for profit.

I have also learned that being a part of the Religious Society of Friends frees me to find out all of this for myself without banging me over the head with dogma or without incessant pleas for financial support or without undue influences of authority. If the cause is good, support will come. Not every Quaker cause is my cause. I am free to make or not make an issue become important to me, as the Light leads. I am free to define the boundaries beyond which I cannot/will not go. My boundaries are not your boundaries, neither are yours mine. That is freedom and democracy of religion.

Thank you all for reading and affirming my journey. I hope you are blessed on your journey and that a glimpse of mine helped you in some way. May we all find the God that we deserve!

When I get back, we shall see what happens next. :-D