God
in the World
“Spirituality
is about personal experience—the deep realization that dirt is good, water is
holy, the sky holds wonder; that we are part of a great web of life, that our
home is in God, and our moral life is entwined with our neighbor.”
Diana
Butler Bass (Grounded: Finding God in the World—A Spiritual Revolution)
Spring
sprung over the weekend. It’s still chilly here most of the time, but the birds
and the jonquils know the tide has turned from winter to spring. In my
worldview, there is no better season to experience God in the world than
springtime. Everything is alive with possibilities.
This spiritual revolution that Diana Butler Bass speaks of is the movement of humanity away
from traditional structures of religion to personal experiences of connection—one-to-one
with the Divine. And beyond that to realize that we are part of the Godhead,
part of the All, and yet, not more precious than any other part. We have misconstrued
everything about that for our entire existence—starting with God “walking in
the garden.” And since God was always “He,” we assumed that the male of the
species was primary. That the female—aside from being the one to blow up that
sweet deal Adam had in the garden—was strictly designed to be a “helpmate,” and,
of course, the vessel of procreation.
While I
love the story of the garden for its color and imagination, I know, and so do
other people, that it has been used to blame flesh and blood women for all the sins
of humanity. According to the patriarchal church, Eve caused not only expulsion
from the garden but eternal punishment in the form of work and painful
childbirth. You can see why so many are moving away from the institutions that
hold such dogma—who wants their God to be that mean-spirited?
What
most of us seek is a personal experience of wonder when something in creation
touches us—when something speaks directly to our soul? Where do we find it? How
do we access it so that we can make daily contact with the Divine? It may be a
beautiful scene, a piece of music, the words of a poem, the sun on our face. Whatever
it is, it is God in the world, and it is experienced by God in us. It is alive
and personal, not couched in dogma and concretized in scripture. This experience
is happening to us, in the moment, right now—as we live. It is not reserved for
us after death—it is very much part of life if only we have eyes to see it.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
1 comment:
" The Reign of Heaven is at hand", (if we would pay attention, experience it)
Thanks Jane
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