Is there a God?

The subject for my online service on 15th February was Lent as A Spiritual Journey. One of the readings I chose was by the Christian theologian, Frederick Buechner. In it, he asked a series of  questions, which I'm going to reflect on as my Lenten practice for this year. They came from his book, Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary, which is rather wonderful. So I'm going to attempt to answer one each week (except for the first two weeks in March, when I'm in New Zealand  and will have no computer with me).

The first question is: "If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn't, which side would get your money and why?"

The short answer to this is yes, I do believe there is a God, because I have experienced His/Her presence. But my relationship with God has evolved over the years. As a child, the primary school I attended observed the cycle of the Christian year, and held an assembly every morning, so I learned all the lovely C of E hymns. I also owned a very nice Children's Bible, so I knew many of the stories from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

Did I have a relationship with God in those days? Well, I took His existence for granted, and accepted the stories I read fairly uncritically. It wasn't something I thought about much.

After running into issues with Christianity in my teens, and having discovered Unitarianism, the God I believe in was loving, and omnipotent, but strangely powerless (I know, that is a paradox). I believe with Mother Teresa that we are God's hands in the world, and that He/She can only work through us. I do trust that God exists, and believe with the Quakers that there is "that of God in everyone", and that each of us is "unique, precious, a child of God." And that therefore it is up to us to treat every human being with compassion and respect. Even those we dislike and distrust.

In 2012, my husband and I did a touring holiday in France, visiting several of the marvellous Gothic cathedrals. When we visited Chartres Cathedral, I had a close encounter with God, while walking its labyrinth. I had walked labyrinths before, mindfully, and had found it an uplifting experience. The experience I had at Chartres was of another quality altogether.

When I first entered the labyrinth, I realised that the people in front of me were moving really slowly, stopping every few paces to pray or meditate. My initial reaction was to overtake them and carry on, but my guardian angel nudged me at the right moment, and I decided to go with the flow and see what happened.

Gradually, as I walked, slowly, mindfully, my mindset changed, and I began to pray: firstly, the Metabhavna, the Buddhist prayer of loving kindness, but then, the Lord's Prayer, over and over again, in whole or in part. I offered my prayer up to the heavens, in the sure and certain knowledge that *Someone* was listening. It was the closest I had ever come to a direct experience of God, and I don't think I will ever forget it. It took me 90 minutes to reach the centre of the labyrinth and I simply wasn't conscious of the passage of time.

In the years since then, I have come to believe that God is Love, and that Love is at the centre of everything. And that God in the form of the Spirit is active and present in our lives, if we are only wide awake enough to sense it. I believe that we are all made in the divine image and that God has been waiting for the unique, divine incarnation that is each of us since the beginning of the universe, and that He/She sees each of us as perfect and whole and beautiful, exactly as we are. And that this perfect, whole, beautiful being lives inside each of us and is loved by God, and has been loved by God since we were born, and that there is nothing we can do (however good or bad) that will change that.

Today, I have an active awareness of God, the Sacred, in the natural world, in my everyday life. I have come to recognise that God is everywhere: in the world, and in me. And that is good.

God Beyond Proof

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor, theologian and passionate campaigner against the Nazi regime. For this "crime", he was imprisoned by Hitler's regime in April 1943, and executed by them on 9th April 1945.

But his faith in God, in God's grace, was untouched by his sufferings. As the Wikipedia article about him comments, "His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential; his 1937 book, The Cost of Discipleship, is described as a modern classic." 

When his fellow dissident pastor, Martin Niemöller, founded the Pastors' Emergency League in 1933, to protest against Nazi interference in church affairs and theology, Bonhoeffer swiftly came on board. The League eventually evolved into the Confessing Church, which stood for traditional Christian values against the German Christians, who supported Hitler's policies.

He once wrote, "A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol." Which is a neat expression of the central paradox of any deistic faith. Because belief in God is essentially a matter of faith, which the anonymous author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament defined as, "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

I agree with him, up to a point. Yes, none of us can prove (or disprove!) the existence of God. For people who believe in Him / Her / It, God exists; for people who don't, God doesn't. But I believe that we can know (in a certain sense) that God exists for us, through faith.  And I, along with so many thousand others, have spent considerable time and energy trying to work out what God means to me, as a Unitarian.

Over the past decade or so, I have come to appreciate that for me, God's presence is everywhere, in our ordinary, everyday lives, if we had but eyes to see and ears to hear. And is also eternal, infinite and real; not unknowable. Or at least, not entirely. I believe we can only get glimpses of the Divine, but we can become aware of Her / Him / It in everything around us, in ourselves, and in each other.

This belief makes me a panentheist, which is defined in Cross's The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church as, "the belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part of it exists in Him [sic.] but that His [sic.] Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe."

So for me, the Divine is not only beyond proof and eternal and infinite, but also immanent, within all things. As the Quakers would say, there is "that of God in everyone". To which I would add, "and in everything."

The presence of the sacred in the natural world was first shown to me by my father, when I was a little girl. He showed me a flower and asked me to really look at it, to become aware of its intricate and complex design, having petals, sepals, stamens, carpels; each element working together to form that flower and enabling it to reproduce. He asked me, "How can we look at the design of that flower, and not believe in a creator God?" And I felt an inner jolt, which has always accompanied my understanding of a revelation of the truth. The beauty and intricate coherence of the natural world still fill me with awe and delight, and I often stop, on my walks in the forest near my home, to give thanks.

The understanding that this Divine indwelling presence also extends to humankind has taken longer to penetrate. But today, I honestly trust that there is that of God in everyone; and that God is Love at the centre of everything. And that the best way of worshipping Him / Her / It is to recognise that, and to try to live in the world in response to this sacred presence. 

Proof and trust are very different ways of approaching difficult ideas, such as the existence of a Divine Being. It is, perhaps, natural to want some proof, and many Christians cite a list of belief statements as proof of God's existence, in the form of various creeds which summarise Christian beliefs.

But I say again, belief is not the same as proof. We cannot prove the existence of God, but I honestly don't think it matters. What matters is that we live our lives in the best way we can, try to make a positive difference in the world, and do as little harm as possible. And I appreciate that belief in a divine being is not necessary to resolve to do this, but I find that it helps me, as it helps countless others.

      

   

God Rays

 As soon as I saw the image on this week's postcard, my heart lifted. Such beauty. Golden sunlight shining through trees - one of my favourite things to see, always. I felt a rush of happiness at the sight of them.

Then I read the words which accompany the image, "Happiness shines back like the light of heaven", by the American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian and diplomat of the first half of the 19th century, Washington Irving. I googled him and discovered that he was responsible for the well-known stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Both of which have risen to the level of American folk tales.

"Happiness shines back like the light of heaven." I have experienced this sometimes. When I have been particularly happy, the world seems to come into clearer focus - everything I see around me is illuminated by its own inner light, which I am willing to believe is not objectively true, but a result of my state of mind influencing my vision. I think that for me, that is what makes a place, a memory, sacred. In my memory, it is lit by the rays of God, the light of heaven.

And because memory is faulty and will fade in time, I have sometimes tried to capture the essence of the beauty of what my eyes have seen by using the camera on my phone. My nearest equivalent to this picture happened one Autumn morning in Salcey Forest, when I saw this, and was filled with joy and wonder at the beauty of God's creation:

I am so grateful for eyes to see, ears to hear, a nose to smell, a mouth to taste, skin to touch and a heart and soul to interpret and understand. I believe it is our senses which bring the glory of God into our experience, and our hearts and souls which enable us to be ready to receive it. It is what we perceive through our senses which brings us happiness, which reflects the light of heaven into our lives. And it need not be limited to natural beauty - I have felt the same thing when beholding the face of a friend or family member, when listening to something which speaks to my condition and so on. We are complex creatures and our responses to events and places and people will be unique to each of us. But I do believe that when we are awake to them, they can also point us to the presence of the Divine in our world.

Trusting in God

 This week's quotation comes from the Book of Psalms in The Hebrew Bible. It reads, "Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act." 

I envy the writer of those words his simple trust. (I don't think I'm making an unwarranted assumption that it was a man). Because simple trust in God is not easy, in these complicated days. At a time when our news headlines are full of stories of war, violence, sadness and grief, it is difficult to trust that God knows what He/She/It is doing.

I recently listened to the audio book of The Shack by William P. Young. And its central character, Mack, who is grieving the adbduction and murder of his youngest daughter, brings up this very issue. And Papa (God the Father) tells him, "There are millions of reasons to allow pain and hurt and suffering rather than to eradicate them, but most of those reasons can only be understood within each person's story. I am not evil. You are the ones who embrace fear and pain and power and rights so readily in your relationships. But your choices are also not stronger than my purposes, and I will use every choice you make for the ultimate good and the most loving outcome."

When Mack protests that she shouldn't allow bad things to happen, she replies, "You see pain and death as ultimate evils and God as the ultimate betrayer, or perhaps, at best, as fundamentally untrustworthy. You dictate the terms and judge my actions and find me guilty.... You don't think that I am good. If you knew I was good and that everything - the means, the ends, and all the processes of individual lives - is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me. But you don't."

Mack makes one final comment, "I just can't imagine any final outcome that would justify all this." And Papa replied, "We're not justifying it. We are redeeming it." Later on in the book, Sophia (who is the personifcation of Papa's wisdom) tells him, ""Papa has never needed evil to accomplish his good purposes. It is you humans who have embraced evil and Papa has responded with goodness. ... Give up being his judge and know Papa for who he is. Then you will be able to embrace his love in the midst of your pain, instead of pushing him away with your self-centered perception of how you think the universe should be."

Later on, Papa explains, "Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn't mean I orchestrate the tragedies." 

Which has given me a whole other understanding of God. I have realised that the only way forward is to let go of judgement and trust. I like how Mack learns to trust but, like him, I find it so very hard. That last quotation really hit home. It helped me to understand that although God, because he has given us freedom, will not intervene in the affairs of this world, he will "work incredible good" out of it. Hard to hold on to, hard to believe, but what if it is true? Can I let go enough of judgement to trust in God's goodness? I'll get back to you on this.

Does Love Require Freedom?

 Regular readers of this blog will know that I use a weekly quotation as inspiration for it. And it is rare for me to disagree with the writers, poets, artists, philosophers and theologians chosen by the compilers of the Harenberg Calendars. But this week I do. The quote is by German writer and poet, Heinrich Heine, "Love requires freedom in order to exist and flourish."

No, it doesn't. Love is the greatest power in the world. It is stronger than fear, stronger than hate, stronger than anything. I believe that Love is God's presence at the centre of everything. And I believe that in the end, it will ultimately prevail.

Some may think that this is ridiculously naive, stupidly optimistic. And if we look around at our world, they may have a point. Yet in the darkest places, the most hopeless times, something gives people the strength to resist evil, the power to carry on when bad things happen. I believe that thing is Love.

I believe that Love is a real power in the world. Which has been proclaimed down the centuries. We only have to read St Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, in which he speaks of the power of Love:

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It doesn not insist on its its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease: as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

So no, Heine, love does not require freedom in order to exist and flourish: it is the most poweful force in the world.

The Divine is Everywhere

This week's quotation is by Annie Besant, the 20th century socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist and human rights activist. It reads, "Underlying everything is an eternal, infinite, unknowable, real Being."

Most of it makes sense to me, because I have felt it. For me, God, the Divine, Spirit of Life and Love, is eternal, infinite and real. But not unknowable. At least, not entirely. I believe we can only get glimpses of the Divine, but we can be aware of Her / Him / It in everything around us, in ourselves and in each other. 

Which makes me a panentheist, which is defined in Cross's The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church as "the belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part of it exists in Him [sic], but that His [sic] Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe."

So the Divine is not only beyond and eternal and infinite, but also immanent, within all things. As the Quakers would say, there is "that of God in everyone". To which I would add, "in everything".

I was first shown this as a little girl, when my father took me out into the garden and asked me to look - really look - at one flower and to appreciate the wonderfully intricate design of it. He told me (and I'm paraphrasing now) that the amazing way that everything fits together is evidence for the existence of God, because nothing so wonderful and intricate could have come into being at random.

And, unlike many of the nuggets of wisdom that parents share with their children, that one has stayed with me. I am still filled with awe and wonder at the the beauty and intricate coherence of the natural world and often stop, on my walks in the forest, to give thanks.

The understanding that this Divine presence also extends to humankind has taken longer to penetrate. But now I do honestly believe that there *is* that of God in everyone. I have also come to believe that God is Love at the centre of everything. And that the best way of worshipping Him / Her / It is to recognise that and to try to live in the world in response to it. 

Which ain't easy. It is far easier (and perhaps more instinctive) to make snap judgements about everyone we meet, rather than waiting to get to know them and then to perceive the divine Spark at work within them. None of us is perfect, but if we try to bear the everywhereness of God / the Divine in mind, we might learn to relate to the world in better, more productive ways.

We are the Sunbeams

 Yesterday, I had a session with my spiritual director, which was rich and good. And towards the end of it, we spoke of our relationship with God, and he shared the revelation that there is no separation between us and God, "not even the shadow of a hair's breadth".

In the past, I have felt moments of connection with the Divine, whatever we name Him/Her/It. But the idea that there is *no* separation between us was new to me - or maybe I was not ready to receive it before. My spiritual director said that it would take time for this idea to move from my head to my heart, that I would have to sit with it for a long time before I truly experienced it. And I believe that.

But this morning, I was mulling over what he had said, during my morning sit, and these words came to me (the first image came from my director, the rest from me):

God is the sun, we are the sunbeams,

we are emanations of God.

God is the Light within us all,

reflecting and connecting with the Light around us.

God is the water, we are the ripples,

caught up in the Divine Flow.

God is the air, we are the breath,

each breath in, a breath of Life,

each breath out, a breath of Love.

God is the One Tree, we are the branches,

growing out of the Source of Being.

God is the fire, we are the sparks,

lighting up our universe from within.

God is Love, we are lovers,

sharing, caring, healing, understanding.

There is no separation between us,

"not even the shadow of a hair's breadth."

We are working parts of God.

I believe that sitting with this will give me enough purpose and meaning for a lifetime...

Love's Gift

This week's quotation, by Rabindranath Tagore, puzzled me somewhat. "Love's gift cannot be given. It waits to be accepted."

Unless we see 'Love' as God.... who cannot storm our hearts by force, but knocks politely, waiting patiently for us to let Him/Her in.

As Paul famously wrote in his first Letter to the Corinthians, "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way/ it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

I believe that the best kind of human love shares these attributes. If we truly love someone, we accept them just the way they are. If the person we love behaves badly, we hold on to our love with everything we've got, and hope that our love will eventually be accepted.

And unless we can open our hearts to God, we will never truly experience His/Her Love.

I am not a mystic, but once, I had a vision of the truth, which I can only believe came from God. A few years ago, I bought myself a Celtic-style silver cross. For many years, I had repudiated the symbol of the Christian cross, associating it with death and failure. But my attendance on the Encounter course at the London Centre for Spiritual Direction was opening my heart in ways I had not foreseen.

And one morning, I was applying some moisturiser to my face, using a magnifying mirror for the purpose, when the mirror slipped, canting to a different angle. And I noticed the cross around my neck and realised that instead of a circle at the centre, it had a heart.

This hit me with the force of a revelation. I saw that God was Love at the centre of everything. A belief which has changed my life. For the first time, I was able to accept God's love for me, and to realise that my job in the world was to love others in that same wholehearted way.

Living the Words

I have a beautiful prayer, adapted from some ancient words from the Celtic Christian tradition, that I use daily, which encapsulate my conscious wish to live whole-heartedly, bringing my whole life under God's influence.

God to enfold me (in his loving arms)
God to surround me (so that I am always aware of His presence)
God in my speaking (so that I think before I speak / write, and don't use words that have the capacity to wound others)
God in my thinking (the "What would Jesus do?" question)

God in my dreaming (so that I have big plans for a better world)
God in my waking (so that I bring Her to my mind as soon as I awake)
God in my watching (so that I am aware and mindful of His presence, and also that I watch my own actions and words)
God in my hoping (so that I never give up)

God in my caring (for others, and also for myself)
God in my loving (because Love is the greatest force for good in the world)
God in my choosing (to live whole-heartedly and vulnerably and mindfully)
God in my trusting (that God *is* everywhere - particularly that there is "that of God in everyone", as the Quakers say)

God in my life (so that I try to live it mindfully, in awareness of Her presence)
God on my lips (so that my words do not wound)
God in my hands (so that my actions match those beliefs I am professing)
God in my heart (because Love is at the centre of everything)

God in my sufficing (so that I understand that who I am is enough, and that I don't need to "please, perform and perfect", to be loved)
God in my slumber (because I know the fundamental importance of rest and relaxation)
God in mine ever living soul, God in mine eternity (so that I recall that I came from Her and will eventually return to Her. And that the time in-between is the only life I have on this earth, my only chance to live wholeheartedly, striving to be the best person I can be).

Amen, Blessed Be.

"That of God in everyone"

I love Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's words: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." With the Quakers, I believe that there is "that of God in everyone"; a divine spark reaching out to the rest of the universe and to God. Some Unitarians believe in the Holy Spirit as "the active divine presence in individuals and communities, as the divine breath that gives us life, as ... the divine mystery moving among us and within us as we work and worship." (Cliff Reed)

The belief in God as the Spirit working through human beings is one which many Unitarians, including myself, are increasingly warming to. While we may have rejected the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient God, many of us still believe that God definitely exists, as that "active divine presence" that Hall refers to. As Mother Teresa wrote: "Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own home. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbout ... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting."

 

 

The God I believe in

I was talking to my friend Graham, who is training for the Baptist ministry, and the discussion turned to the nature of God. Graham knows I'm a Unitarian, and hence do not believe in a triune God, and he was curious to know what sort of God I believe in.

My first response is that I'm a Unitarian, so I believe in one God. Then I went on to explain that (with the Quakers) I believe that there is "that of God in everyone". Graham's response was interesting; he said "You're not a Unitarian, you believe in a multiplicity of Gods inside everyone." Well, no. I believe that the nature of God is both transcendent - the Ultimate, Other, Divine Presence "out there", but also the "still, small voice" inside each one of us; the divine spark that makes us who we are. Some people might designate that part of us as "the soul". I believe that our job as human beings is to listen to "that of God" within us, and to respond to its promptings to be the best people we can be. Perhaps this makes me a Multiplitarian - I don't know.

Unitarianism grew out of Christianity. It was only during the 19th century that we started to explore different aspects of how and why we believe what we believe. I'm talking here about the nature of authority. In traditional Christianity, the teachings of the Church, tradition and the word of the Bible are the accepted sources of authority. Unitarians believe otherwise. In the words of Alfred Hall, author of Beliefs of a Unitarian:

"But above all it must be known and understood that Unitarianism is not a system of creeds or beliefs. It is more than anything else an attitude of mind. It is a fresh way of looking at life and religion ... It lays stress on the reliability of the human mind to judge for itself ... Its method is that of appeal to reason, conscience and experience generally, and above all to elemental principles of truth and right which are implanted in the human heart at its noblest and embedded in the universe."

Unitarians today "do not presume to define God for others. We believe that everyone should be free to encounter the Great Mystery for themselves 'without mediator or veil'." [Cliff Reed] This respect for the individual's right to work out their own beliefs has resulted in a wide spectrum of perceptions of God within our denomination. Some are what I would call 'Liberal Christians', who would define God in broadly Christian terms as a "loving personal power - father-lie, as Jesus experienced" [Reed]; others would say that they "experience God as a unifying force and life-giving spirit; the source of all being, the universal process that comes to consciousness as love in its creatures." [Reed] Yet others, whom we might describe as religious humanists, would use the word 'God' to signify "the human ideal, the noblest visions and aspirations of humanity, against which we measure ourselves." [Reed] And then there are some whose chief perception of God is that of the 'still, small voice' within us, rather than any external power. It should also be realised that these beliefs are not mutually exclusive. Most of us would say that belief in a combination of them is where we would find God. And finally, some of us reject the idea of any sort of divinity, and would describe themselves as 'atheists', preferring rather to place their faith in their fellow human beings.

It is also a vital tenet of Unitarian belief that all are free to work out their own positions, in the light of their own ongoing experience. This openness to new thoughts and ideas is a key concept in Unitarianism: indeed it is what has kept us green and growing down the centuries. Our movement has been underpinned by a process of continuous and continuing revelation. At different times, and in different countries, different ideas have been considered to be most important. The important thing is that we respect and accept each other's beliefs, so long as they do not harm anyone else.

Personally speaking, I find inspiration and truth from many sources - I happen to believe in a personal God, who is both immanent and transcendent, but also believe that the teachings of other faiths hold great truths for humankind. I count myself lucky in belonging to a religious tradition in which I can hold both these strands of belief together, and forge from them my own truth, and worship God - Father and Mother, Spirit of Life and Love - in my own way.