God? @#$%^!

God - Michelangelo

My friend, UnitarianUniversalist, asked me in an email "So exactly who or what is God to you."

Asking tough and interesting questions is the Unitarian Jihad! You can participate and get your Jihad name. I am Sister Axe of Sweet Reason.

I am a Fool. I am going to talk about God, in spite of Meister Eckhart's warning. What can I say -- I am imperfect:

"Be silent therefore, and do not chatter about God, for by chattering about him, you tell lies and commit a sin. If you wish to be perfect and without sin, then do not prattle about God. Also you should not wish to understand anything about God, for God is beyond all understanding. A master says: "If I had a God that I could understand, I would not regard him as God." If you understand anything about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something of him, you fall into ignorance." - Meister Eckhart

I do not think God is a Who or a What or even a Why. I think God is a symbol or an idea. God is a construct in my mind that I measure my behavior by and for. The question "Does God have objective reality?" is not relevant for me. I have the God idea bad (or good, depending on where you sit and what cards you hold.

I wonder if I would ever have thought of God had I not been taught about God. There is some interesting stuff to read about a People that do not have a God concept. Nor many symbols at all for that matter. Piraha do not want them. Evidently, in their language they refer to themselves as The Straight People. They do have Fairies and Forest Imps. Think about that for awhile. We know about Piraha because of the work of linguist Daniel L. Everett.

My search for God/Truth/Light has taken me some interesting places, driven by lust and pride and fear in part. I want to avoid the pains of Hell.  I wanted to have that overwhelming religious experience that I had seen illustrated on religious cards, that ecstasy and enlightenment. I wanted to be St. Agnes in Triumph with Lilies.

I am troubled by my errors. I want to believe that there is order somewhere and that my actions matter in the grand whirl of the universe. Worst of all --  I wonder if maybe there is no meaning. And if there is no meaning to it all, is that bad or good?

I am having such a good time these days, I do not know what to do with myself. So when I am not eating bon bons, I write diaries. And smile a lot. And wait for comments, if any.