The Book: Personalized Religion

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Sample Chapters

3 Sample Chapters
Personalized Religion

• Paradoxicality
• The Bible
• God

Paradoxicality

We are going to start right now with a look at a term most dictionaries don't have an entry for: paradoxicality. Nonetheless, getting an understanding of paradoxicality will prove to be one of the greatest tools for having an adult understanding of religion, the Bible, and God.

- Exercise: Not Minding Not Knowing

Chances are, you don't mind not knowing what "paradoxicality" is. It’s not embarrassing or off-putting. It's just something you never learned. Compare this reaction you have to your reaction to the fact that the word "peruse" — one you might have thought you knew — actually means to read with great attention to detail. (That one rocks your boat a little, right?) I point this out so that when we get to esoteric concepts, you've had some practice in observing — and not living in — your reaction to your not knowing something and learning that something you thought you knew was actually incorrect.

The word paradoxicality is related to the word paradox, which comes from the Greek words para, "past, contrary to" and doxa, "opinion." A paradox is a statement, proposition, or situation that seems to be absurd or contradictory, but in fact is or may be true. Paradoxicality is a word that originated in the science of the assessment of mystical experiences and was used to describe an event in which there is a positive experience with no positive content — an experience which is both something and nothing. Paradoxicality we can say is the general state of being aware of, living in, or understanding paradox.

Before we explore examples and the notion of paradoxicality any further, I want you to think about the experience you have from time to time where you look at a word and it just doesn't look right. You know, you look at a word, and it just looks misspelled even though you know it is spelled correctly. You know that the letters are right and in order, but still it looks or feels wrong.

That's a lot of the feeling you get after looking at the topic of paradoxicality for a while — that it just starts to feel a bit odd.

We are going to look at paradoxicality in more depth, starting out simply and moving on to the harder concept of incorporating paradoxicality into our lives.

Beginner Paradoxicality.

Many months ago, my wife's back went out and she was on the floor of our bedroom in pain. As she slowly recovered, I took on a few of the household tasks — like laundry — that she usually does.

Imagine this: me in the laundry room. On the left side of the room, a large, spread out pile of dirty clothes litters the floor. Over time, that pile gets smaller as I run through loads — discriminating based on hue, whiteness, etc. — and, on the right, there grows an ever-increasing pile of clean clothes.

What I didn't know at the time is that one folds the clothing as it comes out of the dryer to keep it from wrinkling. What I figured was that I would finish washing and drying all of the clothes and then fold everything all at once. The pile on the right, if you didn't know any different or stop to smell it, looked very much like the pile on the left, which it now dwarfed.

Jane, having recovered enough to walk, at some point saw the enormous piles of clothing. From what she saw, I hadn’t even started the laundry — why else would everything be in piles still and not be one pile of dirty and one folded pile of clean clothes? She became angry with me for not starting the laundry. Then I got angry with her for insinuating that I was lying on top of her not being appreciative of what I had done.

Paradox is defined as a statement, proposition, or situation that seems to be contradictory, but in fact is true.

Was Jane right in thinking I hadn't done the laundry? Yes.

Was Jane wrong in thinking I hadn't done the laundry? Yes.

Was I right in thinking I had done the laundry? Yes.

Was I wrong in thinking I had done the laundry? Yes.

How did the story end? We had a laugh. And, I learned that if you put clean-but-wrinkly clothes in the dryer with a wet hand towel for a cycle, you can get the wrinkles out.

Intermediate Paradoxicality.

Think about things that might be blessings: like being the happiest person you know or having perfect pitch. Blessings, right?

Well, they are also curses.

How? If you are the happiest person you know, everyone you meet will be less happy than you. If you have perfect pitch, far fewer things will sound passable to your ears than to mine.

Blessings can be curses.

And, curses are blessings as well.

I have known of many people for whom a life-threatening or life-ending disease has been a wake-up call to really begin to live their life.

Curses can be blessings and blessings can be curses.

Paradoxicality.

This is something that is hard for children to understand — the opposite of something that is true might also be true. While this may fly in the face of what we think of as real mathematical logic, nonetheless, it's true. Good can be bad and bad can be good.

Paradoxicality like this is also seen in language where words can be used to mean both themselves and their opposite — for example the verbs fast, cleave, and dust. (These mean both "moving quickly" and "fixed firmly in place"; both "to adhere" and "to cut apart"; and both "to remove fine particles" and "to add fine particles."). Similarly, we colloquially use the word "bad" to mean good or the word "smart" to mean its opposite. In Hebrew, the verb l·r·c (B’R’Ch) is an antilogy as it can mean both blessed and it can also mean the exact opposite: cursed.

Intermediate/Advanced Paradoxicality.

The most can be had from the world by approaching it rationally. And the most can also be had from the world by approaching it non-rationally.

(There is a difference between the non-rational and the irrational. Enjoying a sunset is non-rational; jumping off the top of a building to become part of the sunset is irrational.)

While each of the above sentences seem to be opposites, both are true.

By approaching the world rationally — buying and selling the right stuff — you can get the most from the world. And, by approaching the world non-rationally — savoring a meal — you can get the most from the world.

It’s not that one is true and the other isn’t.

Both are true at the same time.

Not either/or, but both/and. Paradoxicality.

Advanced Paradoxicality.

Read this next paragraph. It's a quote by fourth and third century BCE philosopher Chuang-Tzu. (It’s really deep, so give yourself some time with it.)

Everything has its 'that,' everything has its 'this.' From the point of view of 'that' you cannot see it, but through understanding you can know it. So I say, 'that' comes out of 'this' and 'this' depends on 'that' — which is to say that 'this' and 'that' give birth to each other. But where there is birth there must be death; where there is death there must be birth. Where there is acceptability there must be unacceptability; where there is unacceptability there must be acceptability. Where there is recognition of wrong there must be recognition of right. Therefore the sage does not proceed in such a way, but illuminates all in the light of Heaven. The sage too recognizes a 'this,' but a 'this' which is also 'that.' A 'that' which is also 'this.' The 'that' has both right and wrong in it. So, in fact, does the sage still have a 'this' and 'that'? Or, in fact, is there no longer a 'this' and 'that'? A state in which 'this' and 'that' no longer find their opposites is called the hinge of the Way. When the hinge is fitted into the socket, it can respond endlessly. Its right then is a single endlessness and its wrong too is a single endlessness. So, I say, the best thing to use is clarity.

Paradoxicality, as you see, runs counter to the childish human desire to keep it all very simple — that this is simply this and that this is not that. We might rather that there is a simple right and a wrong, a this and a that, but it doesn't work that way. (Or this way?)

Good is never just good and bad is never just bad.

Our society would rather pretend that the world is "black and white," "good and bad," "us and them."

But, it's not…and we know that.

This hardly ever is just this.

Religion & Paradoxicality.

How does this relate to religion?

My maternal grandfather used to say, "If two people in business always agree, one of them is not necessary." The tension between two points of view can lead to a third, unexpected one.

Paradoxicality requires one to step outside the box of established perception. To what end? To see that there is more than we thought was there — and that most of what we think "is" is not much more than opinion. (Buddhism and Zen are sometimes taught through paradox because paradox is beyond linear thought, and the practice of playing with paradoxes helps to refine the skill of letting go of thinking.)

Wisdom begins with the unlearning of that which we thought we knew. If you are going to come to a new, adult understand of religion, the Bible, or God, you are going to have loosen up on what it was you thought you knew.

This is the unlearning I spoke of above.

If we find we are certain that "there is no God" then we have, in a sense, made a god out of not-God. When we are certain that God is love and good, do we preclude hate and evil from being in God's world? If we believe the Bible is true that means that it can't also be not-true? Is there no space for a middle ground?

Not this, not that, but both this and that. And, neither.

We have to open our minds beyond their limits and see that while we are limited, we are also unlimited.

(Part of the problem I have found with putting paradoxicality in language is it starts to sound a bit "woo-woo." Nonetheless, I assume you follow my meaning.)

Specific examples.

Let me finish up our understanding of paradoxicality with examples from organized religion: the wine of communion or the matzah of Passover.

Catholics (and other Christians) maintain that the communion wine is transubstantiated into the blood of Jesus and participants in a Passover meal claim to eat unleavened bread because they personally were slaves in the land of Egypt.

Scientifically, rationally, empirically, and cognitively we know that the communion wine isn't really the blood of Jesus and that the people sitting around tables today weren't actually slaves in Egypt. But, to the religious person who understands paradoxicality, while these things aren't really true, they also are. The communion wine isn’t the blood and it is the blood at the same time. And, I eat the matzah knowing that I was and that I never was a slave in Egypt.

Paradoxicality is the idea that we can know something both isn’t and is at the same time.

Sample Chapters
Personalized Religion

• The Bible
• God

The Bible

Introduction • Grouping • Being Non-Believers • Being Believers • What Is the Bible? • Prooftexting & Interpretation • Where is God in this? • What you really need to know. • A suggested middle ground. • Conclusion

A suggested middle ground.

What I’m going to present now is going to help. A lot.

What I’m about to present will help non-believers see some redeeming value in the Bible.

And, what I’m about to present will help believers who find themselves painted into a corner, e.g., having to deal with historical passages in the Bible in which God asked for the murder of innocents.

True & Truth.

What follows is a simple statement, yet it’s profound. Understand this and your problems with the Bible will melt away:

The Bible is filled with truths, while it, in itself, might not be true.

What?! It’s not true, but it’s filled with truths? How is that possible? And, what does that mean?

The key lies hidden in the following distinction between true and truth. And, this is not just a semantic difference. Let me explain.

Think of the story of George Washington and the cherry tree he is purported to have cut down. No reputable historian thinks that the incident happened. In fact, we know that the tale comes from a book published in 1799 by a former Anglican pastor and itinerant Bible salesman named Mason L. Weems called The Life of George Washington with Curious Anecdotes Equally Honorable to Himself and Exemplary to his Young Countrymen. And, we know that at the time of its printing, no close relatives of the Washington’s had previously ever heard this tale.

The legend is definitely not true.

Nonetheless, there is a wonderful truth contained in the false account: honesty is a highly valued ethic for America. (A touch ironic that the truth is about "honesty" and the story is a fake, but hey, that's America.)

Let me spell this out:

True is if it happened, if a videotape and a police report would corroborate the facts. The faith stage of independence (God distant or dead, religion is deconstructed, life is lived in the intellectual) is based on finding out what is "true."

On the other hand, there are the truths which are the eternal, real, and undoubtable morals of the story.

And, truths, like kindness or honesty, provide a little direction to the ultimate question, "How is it that I'm supposed to live my life?"

Now let’s apply this line of thinking — distinguishing between true and truth — to the Bible.

Even if everything in the Bible isn’t true, it doesn't matter. Methuselah's age, Moses taking a band of slaves out of Egypt, Jonah living within a great fish, Jesus walking on water — it doesn’t matter if any of that really happened.

True isn’t the important thing.

Truth is.

What matters are the truths in the Bible, like the Bible’s perennial charge that we should be kind to strangers and to the less fortunate.

Like the words of the famous Gershwin tune, "It Ain’t Necessarily So." It doesn’t matter if it is true that Jonah "made his home in that fish’s abdomen." There is truth in that story: that you can’t get away from God’s will or that which you know you are supposed to do.

Please understand this distinction between true and truth. If you don’t really and truly understand it — to the degree that you could close this book right now and explain it to someone on the phone — please review the previous few paragraphs from the George Washington part. Read them aloud and mull them over until you totally comprehend it.

This difference between true and truth is of utmost importance.

When you keep your eyes on what is important — the truths — what isn’t important, whether something is true or not, doesn’t matter as much.

Plato’s Caves.

What follows is Plato’s allegory of the caves presented in a slightly more modern setting:

Some people, immediately following their birth, are strapped into seats in a movie theater. They can only see the screen in front of them and they are never allowed to leave their chairs.

Over time, they come to believe that the movies in front of them are the totality of reality, that the flat pictures on the walls in front of them are reality.

Then, one day, one of these people leaves the theater, stumbles outside, and experiences the three-dimensional life that you and I call reality.

After some time being surprised, suspicious and incredulous, the people encountered on the streets are thought of as the "true" reality.

This freed, "enlightened" person now feels compelled to return into the theater to try to "liberate" and "educate" those still bound by the delusion that cinema is reality.

I’ve never encountered anyone who has been upset with me for telling this parable with the inclusion of modern media as opposed to Plato’s original presentation: people chained in a cave with a fire behind them and people walking between the fire and them, thereby projecting shadows on the wall.

This is important! That the setting is modern as opposed to ancient does not take away from the truth of the story.

It doesn’t matter if it is a true story because it is a truth story.

Similarly, most folks have no problem with the story of Pandora’s Box or George Washington and the cherry tree as being more about "truth" and not exactly "true."

Adam and Eve are a different story. (Both the double entendre and bad pun were intended.) People neglect to focus on the truth of the story and focus instead on whether or not it is true. The former is the important thing.

Away from the extremes.

With regard to believers and non-believers, there is only one group that really needs to change here: it’s whichever group you are in.

It's very human to think, "What I believe is so rational and logical it would only make sense for someone to drop their inane or arcane beliefs and believe like I do."

Of course, from the point of view of the other, yours are the views that are irrational and illogical. (Weird, huh?)

Let me put it this way, could you eat cat meat as easily as you do chicken, fish, or asparagus? Probably not. What we are accustomed to eating (or believing) is really powerful.

And, that's almost exactly what I'm asking you to do! To be willing to see that there is a different way of looking at the Bible than the way you might have been used to. (I feel compelled to point out I'm not asking you to stop believing what you used to, I'm just asking you to expand your mindset to include a little more.)

This brings us all the way back to the introduction and to our discussion of unlearning and learning.

For those believers who would be upset by my saying that the story of the Garden of Eden is more important as a truth story than a true story, let me ask you: How much would you care if I believed that I could grow onions out of my head? Or, that I believed I had ridden on Pegasus to get to my lunch with Spiderman?

You probably wouldn’t really care that much and just let me have my beliefs.

I’ll ask you to please have the same detachment with regard to those who view the Bible and Bible stories differently than you do. And, I would ask you to consider the fact that we can all agree that the Bible is more important for the truths in it than for its being factually true.

For those non-believers who would dismiss me for talking about the moral of a Biblical story, I’m going to ask you to stretch your minds — there are great truths in the Bible. For example, think about the story of Adam and Eve’s eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Now open your mind with what you know of this tale and see what eternal, moral truths you can find in it. (The footnote has two possible answers, but I want you to find some of your own.) I ask you to commit to having an open mind when someone quotes from the Bible and for you to be willing to see the truths in it.

For both groups, paradoxicality helps.

With the help of paradoxicality, you can know that the Bible both is true and is not-true at the same time. We can all know that we stood together at the base of Mount Sinai and received God’s commandments. And we can know that while it says that we did, we didn’t.

Some

There is a four-letter word a Jesuit priest taught me that I want to share with you: some.

Some is a very important concept we often forget about.

• We don’t understand everything, but we do understand some.
• We don’t need everything, but we do need some.
• We don’t like everything, but we do like some.
• We don’t hate everything, but we do hate some.

As we saw earlier in looking at Chaung-Tzu's writing and paradoxicality, things are not all good or all bad. There are parts of good in bad and parts of bad in good. It’s those two little dots in the yin/yang symbol. Some.

I want you to really open your eyes to the notion that you must not be a member of only one group.

You can be a believer some and a non-believer some.

You can both "absolutely and without any doubt believe that the Bible as written is God's word" and "absolutely and without any doubt believe that the Bible as written is not God's word."

On our scale of 1 to 10, you can circle both 2 and 9 (or any other set) at the same time.

If you used to be a hard-line believer, you can now take some pleasure in no longer having to pretend you believe things you don’t.

If you used to be a hard-line non-believer, you can now see the Bible as both an historical book and a divine one.

If you can, see if you can’t forget which group you used to think you belonged to.

This takes unlearning and opening yourself to the possibility that you aren’t exactly the same you that you might have defined yourself as when you first started reading this section.

True freedom — and we’ll see more of this in the conclusion to this book — comes from freeing ourselves of our delusions and I would posit that one of those delusions is the belief that we are unchanging. Even if you don’t want to accept the notion that your self is temporal, you can see that where you defined yourself on the scale of “absolute non-believer” to “true believer” doesn’t really define you.

To be honest, as far as groups go, you really only belong to God and yourself.

Sample Chapters
Personalized Religion

• Paradoxicality
• God

God

Introduction • Getting a Bit Personal • Notions of God • God's Name • We Change • God Changes • Theodicy • Free Will? • Prayer • Belief in God • Santa • Exercise: God’s Love • Exercise: Frustration • Exercise: You & God • What God Wants • Coming Clean • Conclusion

Notions of God (part 1 of 2)

This section was too big to be in one part. Therefore it's in two. – Rabbi Brian

Different Notions, theory.

A few paragraphs ago, I told you that God in the Bible is identified as the God of each patriarch and matriarch. Jewish tradition explains that writing "the God of Abraham, the God of Sarah, the God of Isaac, the God of Rebecca, the God of Jacob, the God of Leah, and the God of Rachel" instead of the more concise "the God of our ancestors" is neither a mistake nor a waste of ink. The reasoning, I learned in rabbinical school and share with you here, is that we should understand that each of the Biblical forefathers and foremothers had a unique relationship with God. The lesson for us is that so should we — the relationship that our parents had with God is not and cannot be the same as the one that we have.

At the tender age of 17, the young Menachem Mendel Morgenstern, the man who would later become the revered Kotzker Rebbe, chose a route towards God — black-hat Hasidism — that wasn’t the path his father wanted him to follow. He explained to his father that he needing to find and be with (the) God (of his understanding) by expounding on Exodus 15 — “This is my God to whom I give glory.” How did he understand this Biblical verse? He explained it as this: “I must search for God in ways that have meaning for me. Only then can I exalt 'the God of my father.'”

And there is a midrash — a classical rabbinic story — that says to the Garden of Eden there is exactly one door for every person alive and that no one is admitted through the door of another. Moreover, the tale continues, should any one person enter through the door earmarked for someone else, all would be expelled for all time.

The point is that we all must have our own relationship and our own notions of God.

This is why I continually put those parentheses in the phrase (the) God (of your understanding). The parentheses are very important.

A central prayer of Judaism, which is a translation of Deuteronomy 6:4, and I learned as a child is, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God! The LORD is One." I prefer this parallel, less word-for-word, yet more precise translation of the Hebrew, "Listen all of you who wrestle with understanding and being with God! God is God is God is God and God is all of our God. And all of our notions of God are the one God."

Of course, you and I are different and will have different notions of God.

A great number of people believe that there is one God who is external, incorporeal, all-powerful, all-good, and active.

You might, but you don’t have to. You can have your own experience.

Really.

God-Wrestling.

According to Judaism, you don't need to believe in an external, incorporeal, all-powerful, all-good, and active God. Judaism does not require a clear, steadfast, dogmatic belief. Really. To that end, there are synagogues that have led services for generations that, God bless them, never mention God.

(I can't vouch authoritatively for other religious groups — but I can tell you that I have met avowed atheists who are practicing Muslims and Christians and clergy folks of most every organized religion who don't believe in an external, incorporeal, all-powerful, all-good, and active God.)

You can claim, "I don't believe in God" until you are blue in the face and I absolutely will and do believe you.

But, struggling with God, that's something else.

You can not believe, but I don't think you can not struggle. (For that matter, believers struggle too.)

Let me say this: it's easy to feel at peace with God and the world when you are at the end of a beautiful day of hiking with friends. There is hardly a person in the world who wouldn't feel fine with God then. It's the rest of the time that's a struggle. (I hope I've help to validate this widespread, yet hardly addressed experience.)

There is a commonly held and incorrect notion that "religious" or "spiritual" people ought to be in a perpetual state of honeymoon with God.

This simply is wrong.

Moses, one of the most famous Biblical characters, loses his temper with and gets upset with God. And, the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote in her diary that she wished that God was more evident in her life.

Having a real relationship with God — even the one you don't believe in — involves questioning.

Do you know what the word and name Israel ktrah (Yis'ra'el) means? It means "struggles with God" or "fights with God."

Israel is the name given to one of Abraham's grandsons after he spent a sleepless night wrestling with what the biblical text seems to imply is God. His name is changed to Yis'ra'el because he fought with God.

One way that I like to look at all Jews, Christians, and Muslims is that they are all relatives of this biblical God struggler.

We clergy folks like to point out that the verb "struggles" or "fights" remains in the present tense because the wrestling with God is not something that once done is over. Each of us, every day struggles, fights, and wrestles with, defeats, and is defeated by God.

Struggling with God, struggling with the question of God's existence, struggling with the role of God in one's life — these are not optional — none of us ever has full certainty with regard to God.

(This is how earlier I made the substitution of "Listen all of you who wrestle with understanding and being with God" for "Hear, O Israel.")

To restate this: Believing in God is optional. Loving God is optional. Struggling with God is not optional.

The "What I Know About God" List.

Sometimes, I choose not to write down what items I need in the grocery store, so I keep the list in my head. And, while I go around the market, I continually mutter to myself the list so as to not forget an item. When I take the time to write the list down, my shopping experience is always a little more comfortable.

That's the idea behind the "What I know about God" list I am going to ask you to make; it can free you up from keeping the list in your head and having a much more pleasant proverbial shopping experience.

This, like the circling the numbers above is nothing that is set for all time — just a chance for you, at this moment in time, to see what you know about God.

And, yes, I really recommend you write out your answers. (That's what the grocery list analogy was about.)

If you don't know how to get started, let me give you some recommendations.

The first is based on how I made my first list:

After feeling really confused by my graduate school education — I asked people what they knew for certain about God. (I did some of my research by e-mail which seemed to work really well — in fact, better than in person.) When a person's answer resonated with what I knew to be true in my soul, I appropriated that answer and wrote it down on my list.

I wholeheartedly recommend you doing the same. I found people love the opportunity to make "Big Talk, not small talk."

Another good way of going about making your list is to write out five different declarative sentences about God, five a day for the next five days. Then, look at your 25 sentences and you'll be able to easily fill-in the below.

The list

In the first column, list all the things that you know for certain God is or does. In the other, all the things you are certain that God isn't or doesn't.

(During the course of reading this book, feel free to flip to this page and modify your list.)

Notions of God (part 2 of 2)

The Elephant.

There is a classic Indian fable, made popular in America by 19th century poet John Godfrey Saxe, about six blind people each encountering a different part of an elephant and expressing a different hypothesis on the nature of the elephant based on that one part. "A snake," says one with the trunk. "A tree," says the one with a leg. "A wall" says the one at its side. The pachyderm is, in fact, none of those.

We each can have a different interpretation and relationship with God. (And, for all you monotheists, God can still be one.)

And, now that we have some notions of what you believe and don't believe about God, and how that's alright that we all have different parts of the proverbial elephant, let me share with you some classic and non-classic notions of God.

Most common Gods.

According to a recently published Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion survey, America's most common four notions of God are: authoritarian, distant, benevolent, and critical.

Note: assumed in this study are a few commonly understood notions about God. These notions are that there is only one God and that God is good, all-powerful, and all-knowing. (Remember: you are required neither to maintain any of these nor to feel guilty or awkward if you don't.)

Here's a run-down of each:

Authoritarian God.

Angry at earthly sin and willing to inflict divine retribution. (Approximately 32 out of 100 who profess to believe in God most closely align themselves with this image. Regionally in the United States, this image is predominant in the South.)

Distant God.

A faceless, cosmic force that launched the world but leaves it alone. (Approximately 23 out of 100 who profess to believe in God most closely align themselves with this image. Regionally in the United States, this image is predominant in the West.)

Benevolent God.

Sets absolute standards for man, but is also forgiving — engaged but not so angry. (Approximately 25 out of 100 who profess to believe in God most closely align themselves with this image. Regionally in the United States, this image is predominant in the Mid-West.)

Critical God.

The classic bearded old man, judgmental but not going to intervene or punish. (Approximately 16 out of 100 who profess to believe in God most closely align themselves with this image. Regionally in the United States, this image is predominant in the East.)

Other pieces of the Elephant.

While the above four are the most common views of God, they are pretty sterile. In my talks with people, I've gathered much more colorful attempts to encapsulate the limitless — different notions that different people have come up with as stabs at trying to define God. And, that's why I asked you to do the same.

Here are some of those notions.

None is exact — none is right — none is perfect.

And that’s part of what is so wonderful.

Remember: I am not asking that you subscribe to any one of these notions, just that you read them.

Great Clockmaker

The existence of a clock necessitates the existence of a clock-maker — even if we never see or know this clock-maker. Similarly, the existence of the world necessitates some sort of creator. Moreover, God is like the clock maker who made the clock, wound it, and then stepped away.

Reluctantly Invited Guest

God is treated like the guest invited to the dinner party — invited out of guilt and then treated poorly.

Highest ideals

Twentieth Century German-American psychologist and humanistic philosopher Erich Fromm tells us that the word, God, is just a placeholder for our highest ideals:

"God" is one of many different poetic expressions of the highest value in humanism….

Everynothing

Sixth Century BCE philosopher and author of Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tsu wrote that God is simply perfect and beyond words:

There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene. Empty. Unchanging. Infinite. Eternal. Present. It is the mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it God.

Post-it^® Note

Sometimes I put a Post-it Note up in a place so that I will be certain to see it repeatedly. And, for a while, I see that note.

But then, after time, the note seemingly disappears; it becomes part of the background.

God, while plainly visible to me from time to time in different manifestations, similarly disappears.

Television

I don’t understand the entirety of how my television turns the wires that come into it into pictures and sound. I can still enjoy it. I can feel the same about God.

God, driving the cart

"Larry, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing," I said. Larry is a dear friend and mentor of mine, a retired minister and sociology professor. I said this to him about six months before I realized I was supposed to be running Religion-Outside-The-Box, writing this book, and empowering people to find and be with (the) God (of their understanding).

"What am I supposed to do?" I asked Larry over pizza.

"Let me paint you a picture," he said, as his voice dropped down a little to the compassionate preacher tone I love so much. "You are thinking about it a bit backwards. Think of riding on the back of a cart…you are going over terrain that looks familiar. You can see there in the distance that tree you knew so well a while ago. With every moment it gets a little smaller, but it’s there. Then, up here to the right, there's that rock, that place that you know so clearly from recently. And, there on the left is that thing you would rather not remember so clearly, but it's there….

"And, you are just going along….

"You can't see where you are going, because you are facing backwards. But you can see where you have been….

"You have a sense of where you are going, but you don't really know. The path looks familiar….

I interrupted, "The question, then is simple: ‘Do I have faith in the driver?’"

Pet : me :: me : God

My dogs don't understand why I have to take them to the veterinarian for shots that hurt. (Of course, this is somewhat of a guess as my dogs don't express themselves in words as much as they really drag their feet when we get to the vet's office.) Neither likes visiting the vet much more than I enjoy trips to my dentist to get the plaque scraped from my teeth.

Perhaps God causes me "pain" for reasons that are beyond my understanding?

God-hole

While I cannot define what it is that I mean when I use the word God, I do know that there is a hole inside of me.

Nothing seems to fill that hole's emptiness no matter what I try to cram into it — food, thinking, or any compulsion.

It is a God-hole.

I cannot describe the emptiness of that hole, but I can know the shape of its perimeter in me.

Nothing but God will fit this God-shaped hole.

I-Thou

Martin Buber, the turn of the 20th century philosopher, proposed that interactions between people and others can be categorized into two groups – I-It and I-Thou. The I-It relationship is the normative interaction between objects; it is a connection of experience and using. The I-Thou, while more rare, is when the two parties fully accept each other — and this connection he explains is an aspect of God. To Buber, others are not obstacles on the path to the divine, they are the path!

Magicalness.

God is that mercurial, magical difference between a body and a corpse, between a painting and art, between unconsciousness and consciousness.

God, Me, and You.

William Blake once was asked if he believed Jesus was the only true God. His response is at first enigmatic, but indeed brilliant: "Jesus Christ is the only true God…and so am I. And so are you."

A daughter, the mall, & God.

A woman I know had an "aha" moment understanding her relationship with God after her daughter asked to be taken to the mall yet again. "I realize that all I ever do is ask God for things…that must be very annoying."

God-ding.

Predicate theology is the notion of “acting” godly. God, not as a noun, but as an active verb.

As an analogy, a person can act Scrooge-like whether Ebenezer Scrooge was an actual person or not. Accordingly, people — no matter what they believe or don't believe — can act godly.

Not the "good" child.

My friend, Alan, expressed that he had spent his entire life, up until his father died, being a "good child" in God's eyes – never complaining or asking for anything. After his father died he cursed God for making death. "It was only after my cursing God that I found I could have a real relationship with my Higher Power."

Not it.

One of the wisest women I know said — and I'm basing how wise she is on this phrase that I overheard her say — "I don't know much about God, I just know that I'm not it."

Ground-of-us.

Twentieth century German-born, U.S. Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich referred to God not as being out there, but as being "the ground of our being."

Panentheism.

Panentheism is the notion that everything is in God and that God is in everything. (This is not the same as pantheism — without the "en" — which maintains that "everything is God.”) Panentheism maintains that there is more to God than the material universe, that God is transcendent and non-personal, and that God is both the creator and the original source of universal morality.

Humorous Answers.

On a web site, I found a collection of the following "notions of God" that were written as jokes. Nonetheless, they encapsulated some profound views of the divine:

- Noncommittal — God loves humanity, but isn't "in love" with humanity.

- Codependent — God enables us to sin so that we'll need rescuing.

- Common-law — Since the beginning of time, God has assumed sole responsibility for Godlike acts, but has not legally been established as "God."

- Sports — God occasionally intervenes when a big play is needed.

- Chairgod of the board — God sets the agenda, but doesn't get involved in day-to-day operations.

Some of your own.

Earlier, I asked you to write what you knew for certain about God.

Now, I'll ask you, if you want, to write up any encapsulations of God that work for you.

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