My reading this morning can be distilled down to one lovely, simple sentiment that resonates powerfully to me –
I have held this in my mind as I’ve set about my day, coming back to it whenever I recalled the reading and mulling it over: Faith is God within me; I have Faith, so I have God. I have God, so I have Faith. What is within me, guides me…
I have always been an “intuitive” person. I think about all those times that “Intuition” has re-directed my actions, whether big or small, and it clicks for me – that voice that we call Intuition, the feeling in your gut that tells you when something is “right” or “wrong”, that voice that whispers within and helps us to decide which path to take… that is God. In Episcopalian parlance, it is the part of the Trinity that we call the Holy Spirit, that part that lives inside each of us (while also being part of everyone & everything else). To be “moved by the Spirit” is to feel that push or pull of Inspiration or Love or to hear the whisper of the Voice that guides us. I am practically giddy with this realization. Maybe it’s simple and so obvious that everyone-but-me already knows it… but I feel the need to share it, anyway.
The reason this excites me and fills me with such warmth is that while I wasn’t always certain where I stood with God, whether I understood or practiced religion or spirituality correctly, and sometimes didn’t recall that God was with me… I have always known I could trust my “Intuition”. It’s a voice I was encouraged to listen to, and to nurture an understanding of from an early age, though I was taught to think of it as “Me”, my “Deeper Self”… I think that may even be the “proof” that some use to say “there is no God” (ie: it’s all within us, so all there is, is Self). But that’s not the whole truth of it. Yes – what is within me guides me; there is wisdom there that I can tap into, unconscious or subconscious knowledge, deeper understandings – it is all within me, and of me… I worked on paying better attention to my intuition and trusting it to lead me correctly, depended upon it… and all the time, “It” was God. That’s a big enough thought to make me pause and re-read it while I’m writing.
I hold a belief that many disagree with and some downright condemn. It is this: that we all – or most of us – do believe in, commune with and/or have a relationship with God. The same God. We call it – call Him, call Her – by different names, or describe it with no name or form… but I believe we really ARE calling out to the same thing. Or not the same thing, exactly – it’s more that God can be many things to many people, and still be God. If I believe – and I do – that “with God, ALL things are possible”… then how could I assume that God is so limited as to only be how the Episcopalians (or the Catholics or the Mormons or the Hindus or the Jews or the Pagans or any of the other religions of the world), describe it? The very nature of the Divine is that it is limit-less – without limits or boundaries. So if I say, “Ah, but God is actually like this”… I have just implied, “and not like THAT”. It is from this place of belief, of faith, that I can say, “There is only one God”… yes, and that God is everything; everyone gets to be “right” – because “their” God… IS God. All one. /3/9/12