…don’t give up on God…Dig deeper. Think bigger. Draw closer. Let mystery point you to the Creator and discovery expand your sense of wonder.
This article does resonate with me, although slightly differently. I fully acknowledge the quote because I noticed that the God many people were speaking of in the Bible groups and in the OT was too small, too anthropomorphic, and too typically patriarchally temperamental. Although that fit into a mythological narrative, it didn’t fit into the awesome reality I was discovering. Equally, the “Daddy” that people were making out of “Abba” and our childish songs went against the grain when we look at the devastation humanity has caused, the suffering that also the church has perpetrated, and the fact that the line between good and evil runs through our hearts.
The more my studies discovered the complexity and diversity of life as it has developed on our planet, the cataclysmic past of the planet, the vastness of the universe and the distance to other stars that is increasing, I realised that my theology was inadequate. What did grow was a faith that God was present in ways I couldn’t yet understand precisely because of the size of perceived reality. This is when I went through the phase of pantheism, and finally on to panentheism, and an awareness that God is in us in a way we can’t perceive, because we can’t get behind our eyes. At the same time, God transcends our paltry existence, our weaknesses and our finiteness, and pushes us towards him from inside.
I then realised how so many religious traditions are struggling, seeking, and failing with every generation. But it is the defeat that is regenerative, and it is the surrender that brings us closer.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
St. Francis
