“I pray to God every day,” a friend told me. (He knew I had been a pastor and wanted to have a talk.)
“Does God hear you?” I asked. (His ego was strong enough to enjoy such a probing question.)
“Well sure.” I sensed there was more, and waited. “I believe he does.” (We had an even longer pause, and then he looked me straight in the eye.) “I’d really like to experience him, wouldn’t I?” We both laughed. He’d gone through several centuries of theology in thirty seconds.
“Sounds like it.” I said.
Viewing God as outside me can turn him into an idea, a concept. Rationalism did that, theologies still often do that. But seeing God as inside me can reduce God to my feelings and my thoughts. That happened with Romanticism and certain charismatic movements. What these two viewpoints have in common is the assumption that you’re separate from God. Varying philosophies suggest God is “here,” then (a few decades later) over “there.” No, over “there.”
If I notice these two ways of thinking as they occur in my personal mental process, it can open a space for spiritual authenticity that is deeper than head tripping, more inclusive than heart‑tripping. It’s a good thing to side‑step these two extremes, and instead of relying on our “maps” or ideas or feelings, just Be with God, Spirit, Buddha, Nature, Gaia — any and all the names that are meaningful to you.
Like gravity, like a magnetic field, God waits for us between our thoughts and feelings, beyond them, below them. Thankfully, perfecting your thoughts and feelings is not really a prerequisite for knowing God.
Still feel you need something out there or in deeper? That’s okay; take a deep breath, be thankful if you can. Raise hell with God if you can’t. Shrug your shoulders at your mental process if you don’t believe any kind of God hears you. It’s only our own static that keeps us from receiving the signal.
What if God was one of us,
just a stranger on the bus,
trying to make his way home.
Joan Osborne
Best Of Joan Osborne
‘My thoughts are not your thoughts. nor are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.
Isaiah 55:8
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
Simone Weil
Waiting for God
