“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it”

Helen wrote one of the most beautiful posts I've seen in a long time ("The Father, The Son, No Holy Ghost"). I love her blog. It's the first one I look at every day. This day it really got me thinking.

God is a word that is thrown about all of the time. There's a minor controversy here in the US over whether or not the word God should be in the Pledge of Allegiance. Since 9/11 they sing "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch. Politicians talk about God, and their faith.

So just who is this God person?

What do people mean when they say God?

It's a three letter word that is responsible for intense feelings, both positive and negative. It's a three letter word that means something different to everyone.

For a while, I taught the Jr High (11-13yrs) Sunday school at my church. The image that this invokes in most people's minds would be wrong. It was a Unitarian Universalist church. We do things a little bit differently. On the first day of class, I would take a straw poll of the class. First I'd ask how many believed in God? Then I'd ask how many believed there was no God? Then I'd ask how many were unsure? The results with this group usually ran-

Then I'd ask them what the word meant. What did they think of when they heard the word God?

For most of them, the image that was conjured up was the God of the Old Testament. An all powerful, all knowing being that created the world, and has been meddling ever since, throwing around miracles and listening to prayers. This was an image that they couldn't swallow for the most part.

Some of them would talk about an energy in the universe. A power that could be tapped into, but wasn't necessarily self-aware. None of them had ever thought to call this God.

Some of them held that there was the physical world, and that's all. No God, no afterlife, no soul. We're nothing more than a few pounds of chemicals and some water.

Some of them talked about a deity that manifests itself in different ways, to different people, in different parts of the world. A deity that manifests itself in a way that will be meaningful to that person, but not necessarily to someone else.

But that's not God, is it?

Some of them envisioned God as masculine aspect, some as a feminine aspect. Some envisioned God as both, or neither.

The point of this exercise was to get them to shake loose the image of God that someone else had given them, and to find their own definition. Or no definition.

Christian Scientists believe that there are several words that mean the same thing as "God". For instance, they believe that "Love" is a synonym for "God".

That's how I've always interpreted U2's lyrics. Substitute the word "God" for the word "love" in any of their songs and see the change. There's some powerful stuff there.

I used to think that God couldn't be self -aware. I couldn't wrap my head around the concept of a being capable of seeing everything at once, and being able to act on it. Then I read Mother Of Storms" by John Barnes. Now I'm not so sure. It's a question that I don't consider to be closed. There's an awful lot that I'm still unsure of.

Prayer is another word that gets thrown around a lot. What is it, really? Is there a being who's listening? Is it just a way to focus energy? Is it a way to gather energy? Is it a way to tap into the collective awareness of everything? I tend to think that all of those just different ways of describing the same thing.

A friend of mine is a practicioner of Wicca, and he was kind enough to come and talk to the Jr High church class one Sunday morning. He's not some wacko, he's one of the most thoughtful and intelligent people I've ever met. We talked about Magick, and the casting of spells, and to me they looked a lot like prayers. I mentioned this to him, and he shrugged and said that that could be one way of describing it. Wicca was just the path that resonated with him.

I get a daily email from a man who writes a "Thought for the Day". He has a web page, with something that really struck me on the front page-

Meditation and prayer meet in the middle, become the same thing at some point. There is a distinction to be made. One is talking to God, the other, some kind of contemplation.

But ultimately one thing happens in consciousness, a thing unlimited by language or description. I call it an Emanation from the Still Point.

It is a place of rest, peace, humility, in which we unlimit our awareness. We can let God, the Universe, Spirit in. All the beautiful names of God come from this place.

Perhaps praying is talking to God and meditation is listening to God.

And perhaps those are ultimately the same thing.

~John MacEnulty --Emanations From the Still Point

I wish I'd written that.

Let me say at this point that I believe in God, but the word may not mean what you think it does.

I'm not here to discuss what I believe, other than to say that there are many paths to God. It always astonishes me that someone can believe in an all powerful God, but not believe that that being could represent itself in different ways.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. We all see God in our own way. Don't let anyone label it for you.

~Easy

PS- I'm going back to work today. No more slacking.

Joke of the Day

Nine year old Joey, was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday school. "Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he used his walkie - talkie to radio headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved."

"Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?" his mother asked.

"Well, no, Mom. But if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!

tags: religion  wicca  christianity  god  uu  

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