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Reflection 2 - God Talk

8/25/2009 7:41:24 PM

REFLECTION

God Talk

One of the issues I continue to struggle with is how I talk about God, or more accurately, to God. Earlier in my life I tended to feel the closest connection with Jesus, because I could imagine addressing an actual person. So I used the word ‘Lord’ most of the time. When I talked to God, I tended to say Father and told myself that word included all the characteristics of God, both male and female.

Even when I thought of God as more spirit than we are, I still imagined God in a physical form I could recognize, much like I recognize people here on earth; an old Grandfather figure whose lap I could crawl up upon when I needed comforting and unconditional love. I believed God was present everywhere, but it was more like: God is in a specific place (heaven) and sends out the Holy Spirit to interact with life on earth.

I sense the flow of life that is all around this planet and beyond, and I know God is present in all of life. But I can no longer pinpoint God to a place somewhere, or see God as an actual person. I now understand God more as Spirit and present everywhere without the limitations I used to place on God.

But that leaves me floundering a little. No wonder faith traditions develop doctrines. How do we physically limited people understand God to be everywhere, yet still someone (see, again I fall into thinking in limited, physical terms) with whom we can converse? Some people use the term ‘The Divine’ and I find myself doing that, because it has more of a sense of the Force who gives and shapes life throughout the universe; it doesn’t seem as limiting.

But—when I’m hurting, saying to myself, “I’d like to talk to The Divine” leaves me feeling a little cold, a little overlooked. How can I feel a personal connection to God without limiting my ideas of who God has to be?

Maybe the word ‘personal’ is the wrong term. Personal means ‘mine’; it has a possessive quality about it that often excludes others who don’t think like me. Although I no longer think of God as male, sometimes, unbidden, when I feel a close connection or deep need, “Father” still slips out in prayer before I even know it.

What I’m really searching for is a way of speaking to God that is deeply meaningful and directly impacts my life and spirit, but doesn’t put God in a box; a way that makes God immediate to me, not out there somewhere. Maybe there is no such word; maybe it takes many words to describe the various ways I experience God in my life.

For instance, when I’m working my hands through the soil, planting blueberry bushes and trusting the earth will care for them and bring forth good fruit for my pancakes, it’s easy to think of God as Mother, as the One who births life on this earth, over and over again.

This struggle seems to mirror my confusion about who God is, and I know that’s part of the journey.

I’d like to hear from others. In those times when you feel a connection to God, what are you calling God that helps make God more real to you? Does that ever happen?