Friday, January 9, 2009

Dearest God,

I heard that atheists in London plan to put a message on busses in London. No God.

I decided to open my mind around the idea. No God? What about me? Do I believe it? What has been my experience? Did I go searching for God early on in my life? Did I manufacture a god to believe in? It seems to me I didn't go looking for one. One just happened to find me. You.

The message continues about just enjoying life. I thought about that too. No God. Enjoy life. Really? I did a quick inventory of my life, beliefs and thoughts about you relative to enjoying life. If I were to believe in no god, how would my life change? Would I be crippled? Handicapped? Empty? Do I have to have God in order to enjoy my life? Does God's hold on my life make me a lifeless, wretched person who needs to wait for God to move my strings before I move? Do I have no value apart from God?

I don't choose to have a God as much as I believe there is a God at the center of human existence. I believe life is sacred not just because we are human, a miracle in and of itself, but because there is a purpose to all things and that purpose is even greater than the function it provides. Why do I believe it? Because I think we are generally egotistical, self-centered people whose existence pressures others to be like us, to do for us, to follow us. And I think we like it that way. And if so, then our conflict comes when other's god-like behavior pressures us to become like them. And further life is about making others like us to the end. One big conflict.

What I have found is that the God I know, you, give a sacred value to all of life, even the yucky parts. You have a transforming nature that gives me a kindly power to submit to a more beautiful way. When I see the intricate petals of a flower, I admire it but the fact that it has a scent and it functions to do something more than be a flower intrigues me. Why? Because I see you in it. I am changed inside if only for a moment. The sacred in the flower calls to the sacred in me and somehow the flower and I become one and as one we honor you together. I go around all day long uniting with the cosmos, genuinely bowing to you. And when I forget, I have a distinct nudging that reminds me. It's not a someone who follows me around saying, "Hey you, forgot something?" Rather it is a gentle breeze that blows calling to mind earlier moments of faith, of joy, hope and peace that were impossible at some moments in my life. Yet, they came and I suddenly realized that there is a God who brought the possibility of hope, of joy and peace. I breathed them in and the knowledge of them became a sweet scent and I fell down before you in gratitude.

This day I commit myself once again to you. I give you my hand. I can be more, do more, honor more, serve more as a God-loved human. My natural egotistical way is mellowed because I believe your desire is that we humans rise to a higher calling than our one and only self god in the world.

I'm trying to fulfill my destiny, my potential, my purpose. I want to give the world more than I ask from it. And I believe you are the power behind the desire. Here's my hand. Take it. It is yours.

We walk together
you and I
through the
beautiful places
and the ugly.
Our journey
is always sweet
although sometimes
dramatically challenging.
Sometimes I fall backward,
turning away.
You never say,
"Get back here."
You allow me
to turn away
and soon
I discover
you turned
with me.
It is then
I once again
fall to my knees
in gratitude.

Grateful to be counted as one of yours, Andrea