Friday, November 12, 2010

There Is No Spoon

Recently at the Gospels Group, someone said how God is not God's name.  I like that.  Then we were discussing the God who you praise and thank when you get good things and when "he" takes away the bad things.  IF he takes away the bad things, but if he was the reason the bad thing happened in the first place, to test you or make you stronger (setting the whole Satan thing aside for now) then, as P. put it, "God, what a bastard."  P. says he can't believe in that petty being who picks and chooses among us.  Exactly.
 
Why can't we STOP thinking of God as a being?  What happens when we finally quit anthropomorphizing God? What will you think about when God is no longer a person, even the most divine person?  How will you recognize God then?  How often, how much, what will it feel like?  What will happen to you when God is no longer a being?
 
I did this several years ago.  I stopped thinking of God as a person.  It was extremely liberating because when I stopped, then I felt like I truly found God.  I saw God everywhere, felt God, thought about God all the time.  It was like looking through the window of a house and finally just walking in, realizing that I'd never been outside at all.  The window I was looking through was made for me by someone else, taught to me from the time I was a small child and created for the sole purpose of keeping me away from God. 
 
Unlike those who drop off the theistic map though, I did not become an atheist or an agnostic (cowards!).  Instead, I started, for the first time in my life, to think about what I really believed and why.  I started creating my own theology and defining my spiritual beliefs.  It feels good.  So why the title of this blog?  Because I don't need someone else feeding it to me, and I no longer need their delivery tools.  I'm better off for that.  Maybe we all would be.

5 comments:

  1. Very interesting....I loved it...by the way I'm Jeanna's friend...we have met a couple of times...

    ReplyDelete
  2. very interesting Faith!! I have been going through a similar "where am I at spiritually" search lately

    ReplyDelete
  3. First, I think you are a beautiful person, ie a thinking person, which I consider the most beautiful of all. However, I must ask...why is an "agnostic" a coward? On either side of an agnostic is supposedly someone who "knows". It seems to me that someone who knows would by definition be compassionate, at they would understand how hard it is to truly "know". My 2 cents. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for your 2cents Mark. I use "coward" flippantly for those agnostics who are hedging their bets and are too afraid to go with atheist.

    ReplyDelete