musings on god

praying out loud

The Tree of Life (2011)

As someone interested in sharing ideas and perspective and frameworks about living well, it feels right to share my relationship with God, who might be described as the ultimate mental model. I’m shaking my hands and doing vocal exercises over here because I don’t want to cling to a desire to find perfect phrases or descriptions, good is good. I’m also letting go of a desire for you to receive these words any particular way. In a sense, this one is a dialogue between me and God, and you are also in the room with us, listening.

I’m quite cerebral, thinky, logical, and this extends to my conceptions of God. A Christian evangelical friend has pointed out this trait of mine during a few conversations we’ve had. God, as a concept, is Big. Infinite, even. I’d really love some ironclad proof towards His existence if I am to priortize Him in the long arc of my life.

As a kid, I had a conversation with my youth pastor about what I saw as the pros and cons of being a Christian. I told him that I didn’t particularly care about reading the Bible or going to church or doing good works, but heaven sounds pretty great. The pastor assured me that I can indeed go to heaven just by accepting Jesus into my heart, and so I did that with his guidance right then and there in the Panera Bread. We drove to a bookstore and he bought me a Bible, and then he drove me home and relayed the good news to my parents.

A few weeks later the burden of proof became burdensome to my discerning mind, and I revoked my membership as a Christian.

Skip ahead to recent years where I have lived in Austin, Texas, a testament to the profound influence of my environment on who I am. A flurry of connections, events, retreats, and self-study have led me to enjoy the existence of God*. That’s God with an asterisk because it’s the spiritual-but-not-religious God, the God who would never send anyone to hell, the God who just wants us to enjoy our lives, man. It’s a big tent God and we’re all welcome inside because the proof is like water to humanity’s school of fish. The sun on my face and this latte’s great taste and all of life’s little abundances are proof of God, full stop.

So now we come to the ultimate question without an answer. Everyone has their take on God and religion and faith and heaven and hell, and my relationship with God is up to me, no pressure. It’s my responsibility to sift through the incense and the nonsense to have a relationship with God that makes sense? feels right? is resonsant? with who I am.

Of course I am sympathetic to the conceptions of God that do not ask me to fundamentally change as a person, that do not ask me to jump through a collection of seemingly arbitrary hoops, but God knows that about me! Obviously! And this might be the trick of a God in my life, a lovely sort of paradox, one that I have noticed also holds true for human relationships.

To elaborate: when you need something from someone, they resist giving it to you. When you don’t need anything from anyone, people give stuff to you. The God-as-I-currently-conceive-of-Him doesn’t really ask me for anything, and so I talk with Him and I express gratitude towards Him and I meditate on Him and I do my best to live a life of service that is authentic to who I am as a person, a person uniquely crafted by God, as all people are.

Again, this is all Quite Convenient for me, I don’t want to downplay that facet of my current relationship with God. A me from some time ago who was more prone to paranoia and self-doubt might have feared that this is all a trick of the devil who has succeeded in nudging me away from accepting specifically Jesus into my heart or having a specifically Christian faith. That fear is vanishingly small now but it persists, anything is possible.

I admit to a sort of hubris in all of my attempts to apply my human logic to God. God is beyond, more than, infinite. Life often only makes sense looking backwards. God knows that I view the general positive trajectory of my life over the past years as His tacit approval of the evolution of my relationship with Him. I enjoy my relationship with this God of mine informed by vibes and the Tao Te Ching and the spirituality of people who I admire, and I’m open to this relationship shifting radically, instantly, profoundly. It’s an ongoing conversation, perhaps the most fulfilling, enjoyable, and comforting conversation that I am so fortunate to have. Amen!