What Is "God"?

If we wish to know the truth about religion, and "God", we must study the mystics, -- not the masses, as is so frequently done. More than that, we must go the way they went.

The true mystics of all faiths have always asserted that "God" is simply a word, a name, for something which defies description, and which may only be hinted at through actions, images, and ideas. It was the opinion of many such mystics that this "something" is worthy of a great name, and that no greater name could be found than the name of "God". Likewise, many things in their experience are described as "sacred", "holy", or "divine", because no lesser words seemed fitting. This is, of course, a value judgment, and not open to dispute.

The word "God" may apply to the ultimate truth, but it may also apply to the images we have conceived (perhaps drawing upon archetypes already seeded within our own subconscious minds), in order to bring us closer to that truth. The former is the common root of all mystically inspired faiths, while the latter are individual outgrowths, variously expressed. In the first instance, we can say very little about "Him"; maybe nothing at all. In the second, we must reflect that our conceptions are flawed; that, by their very nature, they have the power to reveal, as well as to conceal, spiritual realities. If symbols or symbol-systems do not resonate with you, simply find another way which feels more comfortable for you.

As human beings, many of us find it helpful to make use of a human symbol for God. In attributing personal characteristics, we are speaking in a figurative way. Figurative is not necessarily the same as fictional, but neither is it matter-of-fact. In the Hindu tradition, they have a notion of "the chosen ideal". The devotee selects from a pantheon of gods or avatars the one to which he/she feels a special affinity. This "chosen ideal" serves as a stand-in, or surrogate, for The Ineffable. Many people find it helpful to focus their devotions on this symbol (or Word), while retaining an awareness of "God" as something utterly beyond conception, and certainly beyond description.

The greatest mystics have found, through the experience and practice of deep meditation, a level of consciousness so secure, so peaceful, and so profound, that they were able to experience a complete transcendence of the personality, the body, and all sense of separateness; with the input of the mind and senses hushed, they were able to sink, and to settle, into the very seat of their being; to actually experience their interconnectedness with everyone and everything. The love and fearlessness this inspires has made these individuals beacons of virtue. The best of them have become enduring symbols for something infinitely greater than themselves; historical guideposts, signifying the revelation of the purest truths and mysteries.

All notions and symbols for God serve their purpose only when sacrificed to something beyond themselves, and, ultimately, to something beyond all; "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

The Extraverted Introvert

Some of you may be familiar with Susain Cain's bestselling "Quiet: The Power of Introverts", and with "the Quiet Movement" it has spawned. I'm a huge fan of Ms. Cain, and, for the most part, an introvert, who has spent most of his life bucking against the conventions of an extroverted society.

At the same time, I can be fiercely outspoken (and, admittedly, verbose) on matters of importance to me. I can easily be frustrated with people who hold their cards closer to their vests, reluctant to bring their more private thoughts into the public arena. I welcome the openness, the sharing, the exposure to scrutiny and discussion. All too often, we can become walled-off within the echo chamber of our own minds. Even though seeming to offer sufficient challenges to ourselves, by meticulously questioning and reworking our own perspectives, we can prevent any real challenge to our way of thinking if we are not willing to subject ourselves to the onslaught of other minds.

Moreover, it seems to me that, what a man has discovered in secret, he has a rather clear duty to express openly. What is the point of leaving the world, and entering the desert, if not to return to the world for the purpose of shedding that light which we have forged in darkness? Silence can equally imply both consent and dissent, but only speech -- and, indeed, action (the most sincere and open form of expression) -- will make our position explicit.

There appear to be two relatively distinct schools of thought on this matter, although a truly balanced approach would rather suggest a synthesis of the two, than an undue emphasis on either one or the other.

According to the first way of thinking, which reflects a polytheistic approach, we ought to embrace one another as unique animals, or different members of a single body, each with a separate function. Each of us should be respected and honored for our strengths, and pardoned for our weaknesses; hardly expected to exhibit a more holistic and complete type of perfection. We are not to criticize the carp for his inability to fly, or the lark for his inability to swim. Each of us has our respective role to play in the larger drama, and ought to focus most directly upon that work to which we are best fitted. And so on.

According to the second way of thinking, we ought to give equal, if not greater, consideration to the development of our weaknesses, as to the exhibition of our strengths. We must not be satisfied to play a given role, but must strain after proficiency -- or, at the very least, competency -- in the widest possible variety of roles. Indeed, it may be that we cannot even hope to expertly perform a given function without first acquiring some skill in a variety of other capacities. The dreamer who is impractical cannot bring his dreams to completion, and the man of the world cannot attain the true peaks of experience without some powerful inner vision.

While cooperation between peoples, and a reasonable division of labor, is essential to the harmony of any society, an inward and individual harmony must also be sought. There is no small portion of wisdom in the reflection that we ought to honor people (including ourselves) for those specific gifts which they (or we) bring to the table in greater abundance, and to make concessions for those gifts in which they (or we) are lacking. This is only to show appropriate respect for what has gone before. Nevertheless, the recognition of what truly is, in this moment, must include an appreciation for what else may be. Not merely our gifts, but our potentials, must be counted.

The Renaissance philosophers were not mistaken in the special position they accorded mankind, among all the animals. Not that we are necessarily greater, -- since the Renaissance philosophy did not glorify the best which was in us without excoriating the worst; calling us, at one and the same time, both better and worse than the beasts -- but, that we have the potential to be something more complete; not merely more than the animals, but even more than the gods; who can only inspire, according to their respective natures, a particular aspect of ourselves.

We are not called to emulate the gods, but God Himself.

We are called to wholeness.

On Hell

My friends, I wish to speak to you now of that teaching which you have received on the nature and existence of that place, or that spiritual condition, called "Hell". But, before we enter upon this most sensitive of subjects, some words must be said with respect to the art of interpretation, or exegesis.

In good faith, I pray that, in spite of what you have heard, and in spite of the force with which it has been impressed upon you, you might choose patience in hearing my words, and prudence in weighing them according to the light which is presently given you; and not according to what has gone before. For, I tell you, it is most wisely recorded that the works of God are without end, and the dispensations of God are granted with regard to the capacity of mortal understanding; so that what men have believed and lived in former times must not stand as an impediment to the work which the Lord wishes to effect within you presently or in times to come. If the dispensations of the past were sufficient for the present and future, then, surely, Christ need not have come; for the words of the prophets, and the dispensations of God which came before him, would have sufficed to make clear all that God wished to make known to the spirits of men. On the contrary, the revelations of Christ ought to instruct us in the power of God to reveal new matters, and to make clear what has been left obscure. Was not Christ himself accused of wishing to overthrow the law and the prophets, though he came, rather, to perfect and to fulfill them both? So it is that we Christians, working in our own time, by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, might yet have something to contribute to the fuller and deeper understanding of Christ, and of the law and prophets, which he subjected to a more perfect interpretation. Truly, Christ did not come in order to deliver a new gospel, or a new law, so much as to interpret, or reinterpret, that law which was already confirmed in the hearts of his people. Had men been prepared to receive that more perfect intepretation, no doubt, God would have made it manifest in the times preceding Christ, but, it was necessary for the dispensations of Our Most Holy Father to be meted out over the course of many generations; for, although the Word of God is one and unchangeable, nonetheless, the hearts and minds of men are all-too narrow to contain the fullness of His wisdom, and it is because of the limitations of mortal capacities that revelations of God must be ongoing. Unlike tablets of stone, the hearts and minds of men are not static, but continue to evolve, from generation to generation. And well it is that they should. For, it would indeed be a lamentable thing, if the son did not conceive more clearly than his father, and the grandson more clearly still. We should count ourselves blessed, then, not merely to be inheritors of the Word, but interpreters, as well, capable of perceiving entirely new regions of meaning in those teachings which have been handed down to us. With this consideration in mind, we must never remain content to receive and impart that which has come before, but always be striving to consider what has come into our keeping, and to pass it on to present and future generations in a more perfect form than the one in which we have received it. The Lord did not give us this treasure in order that we might bury it in a field, or in our hearts, and, so, return the sum unaltered, but, rather, that, through insight and industry, we might make of it something more than what it was. We are  called to be interpreters of the Word, and true Sons of God in our own right, after the example of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

By the grace of God, I trust that the words you have just read on the art of interpretation, or exegesis, have not fallen on deaf ears, and, so, been written entirely in vain; but, that your minds, and not only your hands, might now be open to receive a more perfect interpretation of the law as it concerns that place, or spiritual condition, which we have heretofore understood as "Hell". So shall we proceed together to consider the topic which has incited this pen to write.

In the most ardent language, and with a tone so compelling as to appear grounded on the most certain authority, we are told by some, -- indeed, by many, and even by most, -- professing themselves to be Christians, that the Lord God reserves an endless succession of tortures for those who do not love and believe in Him as they should. Now, I do not say that those who have imparted this teaching, nor those among us who have received it in the earnest hope of pleasing Our Lord, are anything other than true, serious, and decent Christians. I merely insist that there is room for improvement still; in this, as in all. Their understanding is not yet as faithful as it might be to the deeper intentions of God in granting this dispensation. Let us see this imperfection, not with the eyes of pride, as a cause of offense, but with the eyes of humility, as a cause of rejoicing, in the knowledge that there is more to be learned and understood of God.

Does this teaching, as we have received it, hold up against scrutiny, in the light of Christ's most inimitable words on the nature of Divine Love? Can it be true that God prepares such horrors and agonies for the souls of men, whom He loves? How can it possibly be true, when Christ clearly states that, if we love only those who first love us, then we are no better than the most selfish of men, -- and that we ought to strive, rather, to love even those who persecute and abuse us, in order to be "perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect"? Indeed, if it is true that God punishes, and punishes so severly, those who do not truly love and believe in Him, then we must conclude, in light of these words, that Christ is either a liar, or is otherwise in error; for, if God loves only those who love and believe in Him, then He is no better than the most selfish of men, and surely such perfect love as Christ possessed could not have come from God. But, if Christ speaks truth, as he must, then there is no such Hell, -- or, if there is, then it is no part of God; it is neither condoned nor maintained by Him, but by the spirit of wickedness alone.

Are we to conclude that God's mercy extends only so far as the grave, and that He ceases to look upon us with Fatherly indulgence the very moment we are loosed from the flesh and cast entirely into His care? Shall we be forgiven all those foolish and impious choices we have made, so long as the possibility of repentance exists, yet denied that same forgiveness, when the period in which we might have repented is past? Shall God's forgiveness be founded on so fragile and fickle a thing, as the duration of human life? Shall one man be given a hundred years in which to make his confession, and another given only twenty? And shall we consider them both to have received equal consideration under God, despite the obvious disproportion of opportunity given to them? My friends, do not trouble yourselves with such contradictory musings on the nature of God; his justice and his mercy. Reflect, instead, on the sweetest utterances of His Son with respect to the fullness of Divine Love, and you will not be mistaken in this.

Jesus came (in the name of God) to love sinners, and to convert them by the power of his love, -- a love which, he says, is only occassioned by the love of God, which it merely reflects; for, it is only as God loved him that he has loved us. Likewise, if a similar love be kindled in our own hearts, it must be on account of the love we ourselves have received from God, through Christ and his ministers. But, if this love is perfect, and only increases with respect to the infirmities of men, then how can it be that such horrors as are reported will befall those among us who are weakest, most deplorably sick with the afflictions of sin, and therefor most in need of God's love; His mercy and grace? For, Christ has shown us an image of God as physician and healer, and not as executioner and torturer. He has come to heal, not to afflict. No doctor, having discovered a patient in particular distress, pronounces him deserving of his affliction, but, rather, proceeds without hesitation to employ his very best methods in the hope of restoring the man to a state of perfect health. It is, rather, in the case of a healthy person where he restrains himself, allowing nature to perfom that good work which is already underway. Shall God do any less? Shall He afflict the afflicted, and give aid only to that man who has no further need of it? My friends, do not venture to believe such a thing concerning your God, who is not merely good, but is Goodness itself. Such beliefs are themselves terrible afflictions, -- and it is not the physician, but the tempter, who engenders them.

What shall we say of "Hell", then, and what is this "eternity" of which we have been told? Believe me, friends, when I assure you that Hell is no creation of the Father, but a delusion occassioned only by the wickedness and shortsightedness of men. There is nothing whatsoever of God in it, and God would not -- could not -- create something which bears not the slightest resemblance to Himself and His will. It is a chimera which appears only to sickly men in the throes of delirium. It will vanish along with the fever that invented it. And if it appears to last an eternity, that is only the loss of hope, which no longer looks forward to a time of liberation, but dwells entirely on its own warped fantasies, seeing nothing else.

The eternity of Heaven, on the other hand, is not a loss of hope, but a dispensing with hope; for, the one who has attained such bliss cannot hope for more than what is given; he is already beyond the threshold of his dearest expectation; his cup runs over.

Having conceived all this, we must not then fall into the opposite error, of believing that evil works have not their evil consequences, or that goodness does not lead to greater happiness and peace. I do not say such things. But, we must not endeavor to think of God as the source of anything so horrific as Hell, nor to imagine that such horrors are somehow worthy of the name of Divine Justice. For, God is the source of all things which are seen in the light of truth, but He is not the creator of any lie, nor of any delusion proceeding therefrom. His only desire is that we should receive all things in a spirit of compassion, equanimity, and righteousness.

So, then, if it be true, as it surely is, that God desires only our salvation, and that all his works are aids unto salvation, how is it that man continues to choose folly, delusion, cruelty, and injustice? How is it that the way of man remains furrowed, uneven, winding, and rocky? Indeed, we cannot so much as approach such questions without taking the greatest care of our steps. The way is treacherous, or seems so, where the light of faith is lacking.

We had better, I think, to abandon this dark method for one more capable of rendering better results. For, the mind loses all sense of direction, and carries us at breakneck speeds into territories unfit for habitation, where the world is divided only into extremes, and where one error leads directly into another (though that other may seem to be at utter variance with the first), rendering us wretchedly confused and despirited, -- if it is not lifted on the wings of an active faith.

By faith, I shall not lay blame upon the will of man. To say that a man is free to do evil is much the same as to say that an invalid is free to limp, or that a man in the grips of consumption is free to tremble and cough up blood. Indeed, it is to say very little. But what of the grace of God, who sends His physician, and offers every help to the man who cannot walk upright by his own strength? What man, being sick, does not desire to get well? Or what man, having difficulty walking, does not wish to run? If he does not submit to the care of an able physician, or accept the assistance offered to him, it must be because the illness itself has clouded his judgement, or the limp has rendered him too imbalanced even to lean in the direction of the helping hand. Let us endeavor to help him, in whatever manner, and to whatever extent, we may; and not to pile insult over injury. Nobody blames the madman for his madness. How much less ought we to blame the sinner for his sin; which is the surest madness?

I anticipate my critics already. No doubt, they will argue that I have lost my nerve and avoided the crux of the matter; the problem of the existence of evil. It is true that I have avoided evil, -- its question and its crux, -- but not because I have lost my nerve. On the contrary, I have discovered within myself, by the grace of God, the nerve to overleap the problematic matter altogether. My answer must remain obscure to those who only grope darkly by the light of reason. My answer is the simple faith and trust I place in God, and the awareness of my own inadequacy to fathom the problem of evil, which, I believe, even God Himself sees fit to overstep. For, who can fathom an abyss of error and untruth, or find order in the very midst of chaos? Surely, it is a trap, set for the unwitting. But God, and the ones inspired by God, would rather seek to fathom an abyss of goodness, and find order nowhere but in order itself.

May His love discover you, wherever you are, and be your most trusted guide in leading you forever and forever back to Him. By the grace of God, Amen.

Seething Broth

 

I am poor-flavored with seething broth;
My pulse doth race, all rank and wroth.

Rather struck with honest fist
than patronized with Judas Kiss,

Indignation rends my heart;
My bleeding heart -- bled dry.

How can I laugh with simple men,
While Christ himself doth cry?

Judas Kiss

"Come with me, to victory!"

"I am content," you say, "to stay," and kiss me on the way...



Why art thou two-faced,
Confessing to me one thing
And another to the simple crowd;
Not proclaiming thy truth at loud?

'Tis not as it was in former times,
When truth was bound to the stake,
Or broken on the rack and wheel,
If it was not concealed.

What dost thou fear
But thy friend's distemper,
Whose peace should well be lost;
Being purchased thus at such a cost?

How callest thyself "friend",
When complicity would thou guard;
And not his virtue, not his soul;
Only what he leaves below?

False comforter, though he praise thee
For praising his wicked ways,
And call thee wise, when, like a fool,
Thou leadest him from school --

At last, he needs must curse thee,
When judgement day has dawned,
And count thee first of enemies,
Who kept him on his knees!

The Changeling

Fools count it a misfortune
When to them a sage is born;
They cannot fashion to their will
This rock from mud-womb torn

They look on him as on a stranger,
And well it is they should; --
For they are merely surrogate
To one sired by a greater good.

Endeavoring to bring him up,
They tear down what is best,
And if he seem to fail in all,
How truly he has passed their test!

Harrowing this trial must be
For the parents, as the child;
Each is bound in misery
To cleanse what is defiled;

The former learning how to doubt
The foolishness of certainty,
The latter working to defend
Faith in his wisdom's sovereignty.

The Worth of Man

Who can tell the worth of man,
His nature and his scope;
When in his breast comingle
Affections so remote?

He is baser than the beasts
And brighter than the stars;
Disciple of darkness and of light;
A child of Zeus no less than Mars.

How shall we judge him, --
With what measure can we rule;
What punish and what pardon --
This wisest of all fools?

He is at odds within himself,
A comic kind of tragedy,
Forever sinking into mud
While straining for divinity.

One moment he is Christian called,
The next, a burden to the weak;
Devouring the spoils of war;
A spendthrift of the gift he seeks.

This creature stranger than an ass
With head of eagle bound
Is ever 'twixt eternities
And nowhere to be found.