More about God

Even though I don't believe in the straw God that I created from the Bible, the wrathful, vengeful, and jealous one, I may not be a poster child for atheists, either.

I infrequently say, but occasionally out loud, that sometimes I think there is a God and sometimes he seems to be on my side. This can happen when I stumble upon an address I'm looking for or some other serendipitous event. I don't really feel that there's any sort of personal entity who's all that concerned with my well being or behavior, or who seeks to reward or punish me, but I do often sense a direction, a "grain" in the universe.

I don't believe in destiny or purpose, but I look at it this way. Suppose I'm with someone and enjoying myself. I take that as a sign that what I'm doing is right. When things become stressful or don't work out no matter how much effort I put into them, when I'm miserable and losing, I take that as a sign that what I'm occupied with is "not to be," that I'm struggling against the current.

For that reason, among others, I try lots of things. Or, maybe it's just "lots" from my limited perspective. When things go well, go easily and effortlessly, when they feel "right" I'm not likely to argue with them. I'm not so egocentric as to believe the world was created so that I can do it, but it's more like a harmony, like I'm doing something I'm fit for.

Those are the things I feel I can be successful at, that I should pursue, that I should embrace. It obviously isn't anything I'm doing that makes some things amenable to me and other, equally desirous ones frought with pain and peril, but I don't see too much of guiding or helping hand in any of it, either. There isn't any personal involvement by the universe, just an order that I can discover and attune myself with.

This isn't much of a God, I grant you. But it does fit in nicely with what I'd expect of a God. I'm sorry, but I don't see God as some sort of Santa Claus and to whom you can pray and get better or richer or laid or whatever. If you need to pass a mid-term, maybe God has arranged it so that you can study and learn, if you want to get a job, you won't get it through prayer as much as by meeting the requirements and being an excellent candidate. I think my whole prayer thing can be boiled down to two stories. In the first, someone remarked that they prayed for patience and the next day had to go to the DMV after waiting at the grocery store. I like the type of God who would do that, who would give you opportunities to practice being patient over waving a magic wand and instilling it in you.

In the second, an older man whom I treasured dearly and on whose answering machine my message was the last and first one he never heard, once told me that while he talked a lot about it, he didn't really pray any more. Everything he had to say to God was unnecessary, and not because God knows everything, but because there was no reason to ask when he already knew that God had given him the ability to fulfill these things. Anyway, he said that if he prayed it wasn't to ask favors or to tell God anything, it was only for other people and his prayers were remarkably short. They'd be little more than "Dear God, Kathy" and he'd think of Kathy, hoping her well or filling with memories and thoughts of her. He wouldn't presume to tell God how to handle her problems, which I admire, and wouldn't ask for his assistance, which was a given, he'd just remember her while asking God to do the same.