THOUGHTS ON THE FACE OF GOD

I’m feeling the need to talk about God. With the recent controversy surrounding the hateful and ignorant comments that Pat Robertson, host of the 700 Club, has made, I feel the need to share my thoughts and perception of what God means to me. I believe in God because I feel in my heart that there is something more that connects everything around us. I look around this earth and I see so many wonderful things about our planet and I feel a deep connection to her. Everything about our planet fits together and I feel a powerful, intimate need to protect and guard our Garden of Eden. Making sure that our ecosystems are clean and undamaged, making sure that we help cut CO2 levels from destroying the atmosphere to simply recycling plastic bottles because I know in my heart that all of this is a part of this fantastic reality created by God. I feel personally responsible that our Earth stays healthy and prosperous because it’s a direct reflection on my relationship with Him. I feel love for him, and I know this, only because there have been moments in my life where I’ve had feelings of anger towards Him, I’ve expressed hatred towards Him, I’ve cursed Him, and I‘ve screamed at the top of my lungs at Him. I truly believe that you can only have these feelings towards anything when, and only when, you actually care and love. These are usually the times where I feel that I am more connected towards Him and it‘s usually when I need Him the most. These raw emotions can only come to surface because I know that I am connected to something greater than myself. I view Him as a father and as a mother, as a friend, as a jokester, and as a companion.
I know that the reality of this connection is more complicated and there are so many questions that people can debate back and forth, which they have done so for thousands of years. Numerous questions arise out of our relationship with God that cannot be clearly answered. Is Jesus Christ the son of God? Is Mohammed the prophet that was touched by the hand of God? Did Buddha truly find enlightenment? Is God really the Goddess of all that is nature? So many people ask these questions and more and more questions are born out of the answers that are given. So I find myself going to the most simple, logical answer to all of these questions. It’s a simple fact that I believe that all of these questions are true and accurate to the believer. There is no reason for these many takes on religion to contradict each other because these contradictions are nothing more than simple illusions. God is what is right and true in your heart. I believe that he shows himself in different forms to the many different people of our earth. I believe our connection to Him is personal and varies by each person. I feel closer to Him through Jesus Christ, through beautiful art and music, and especially through nature. The person standing next to me might feel closer to him through the experience of Mohammad or by the use of a Pagan ritual, both of which, I treat with the utmost respect and through my eyes, are great things.
I count myself as a progressive Christian but I will be the first to admit that I don’t always follow Christian doctrine based on the illusions that these doctrines create. I open my mind to the possibility that the stories of Christ are not entirely known as it is portrayed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These books are dear to me but I open myself to other Gospels that include Mary, Judas, Phillip, and Thomas because I feel that each of these Gospels shed a little light and a little perspective on the whole fascinating story of Christ. I also believe that my personal connection with nature is as strong as my connection with Christ because in my heart, I feel that they are one in the same. If the essence of God flowed through the veins of the Christian savior, my heart tells me that his essence flows through the trees, plants, and animals. This is the reason why I value, cherish and adore this Earth… it is the reason why I will continue to fight for what is right by our planet. I also believe that the essence of God flows through each of us and this is the reason why I feel it’s so important that we treat the different cultures of our planet, the different diverse nature of all her people, and the many religions that lay across her globe with respect and gratitude.
God gave us the tool of education so we would have the ability to rise above ignorance and intolerance and embrace the ideologies of different cultures and people. It is through education that we find understanding and our connections with each other become ever much more clearer. My favorite verse from the bible is from the book of First Corinthians, Chapter 13, “Love covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. For now we see in a mirror obscurely, but at that time face to face; now I know in part, but at that time I will fully know even as also I was fully known.” This portrays to me that I can only discover my true meaning and appreciate my own faith by realizing that I am a piece of a very large and diverse puzzle. I can only be understood if I am to understand the many different people of this planet. Education is the key to unlocking the mysterious of our God.
I have sinned and there have been times in my life that I have sinned greatly but that doesn’t mean that God does not live inside of me. From my perspective I feel him flowing through my veins as Christ must have felt his presence inside of Him. This is why it’s so important to me that I take care of myself and truly love myself. I can’t emphasis enough the importance of loving yourself because without that love and respect, I find that it’s hard for other people to love and respect me. I take care of my body like it’s a holy temple, because it’s the one place that my soul will call home for a time. I take care of my mind because it’s the tool that allows my soul to express itself. I take care of my heart, because it’s the tool that allows my soul to spread it’s compassion. I lack perfection and I never will be, there will be times in my life where I will falter, but knowing the essence of God flows through me , allows me the knowledge that I will be able to pick myself back up again. It’s part of the human experience to fail because it’s those failures that takes us higher.
So this is what God means to me… He is everything and everyone around me. He is my history, my present, and my future. He is the connections that bind us all together, He is the Earth that gives us our life, He is the culture that gives the religions of our society their greatness. So I will say a prayer for all of us, that we each will have great compassion, that we each will have great forgiveness that dwells in our hearts, and that we each will seek out great knowledge and understanding so we can continue to respect and love each other by the grace of our God. May he always be with each of you in whatever shape and form you allow Him to take… Amen!