GOD-centric :

A life centered on the pursuit of a good and fair God of love

Purchase GOD-centric at Amazon.com

Ch. 10 The Eternal (continued)

Closing Thoughts

  Does convergence really solve the questions of natural evil and eternity? Maybe, maybe not. My understanding and loving of God is constantly evolving and transforming because it is always incomplete yet seeks completion. Whom am I, your dear author, in relationship to God? An agnostic theist? A weak agnostic? A deist? A panendeist? A panentheist? A panpsychist? None of these labels resonate strongly with my experience of God so I call myself GOD-centric because I center my life on a good and fair God of love that I do not fully understand and sometimes doubt.

  Yes, I have written an entire book on God yet I still have doubts. I cannot always justify the facts on the ground with a good and fair God of love. I remain troubled by the problem of natural evil. The idea of convergence can satisfy my head but not my heart as I worry about each fragile, unique, special person and innocent animal that suffers natural evil. In addition to worrying about the unique individual, my mind is overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe and the possible existence of M-theory's eleven dimensions. How does the fragile, unique, special individual or even the convergent lot of us fit into such a grand scheme? How is God revealed? When I hear the proofs and the figures are arranged in columns before me, I just want to join Walt Whitman in the mystical moist night-air looking up in perfect silence at the stars.

“Names can be named, but not the Eternal Name. As the origin of heaven-and-earth, it is nameless: As 'the Mother' of all things, it is nameable. So, as ever hidden, we should look at its inner aspects. As always manifest, we should look at its outer aspects. These two flow from the same source, though differently named; and both are called mysteries. The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence.”

~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

  So God remains a mystery to me which is as it should be but it leaves open some hard questions. What if there were a God but that God was not always loving, good, and fair? My answer is that I would remain committed to love, goodness, and fairness and therefore would not commit myself to an unloving, immoral, or unfair God. What if there were no God? I would throw in an extra “o” and love Good in the same way that I now love God. Aristophanes suggested that “Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still live the same life.” Perhaps I am wise or perhaps I am foolish, but I would live the same life if God were good, if there were a God that was not good, or if there were no God at all. I remain willing to face a fact though it slays me. The strength of my faith is measured not in my certainty but in my courage to move forward in the face of uncertainty. My faith is choosing to experience life through the more vivid light of love. My wisdom is understanding that my own and our communal realization of God is, with our right effort, evolving toward our eternal God of love. So, while I cannot understand the whole of God, I rejoice in the bit I do understand and look forward to my continued transformation as I and we move forward loving and engaging life, other people, and God.

  That is my story of God and I appreciate your allowing me to share it with you. But I am not you and you are not me and that is both the rub and the invitation as we love and help each other transform as an expression of God's love in pursuit of better loving and realizing our good and fair God of love:

“No coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:

I see Heaven's glories shine,

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,

Almighty, ever-present Deity!

Life ~ that in me has rest,

As I ~ undying Life ~ have power in thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;

Worthless as withered weeds,

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by thine infinity;

So surely anchored on

The stedfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years,

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,

And suns and universes ceased to be,

And Thou were left alone,

Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,

Nor atom that his might could render void:

Thou ~ THOU art Being and Breath,

And what THOU art may never be destroyed.”

~ Emily Bronte, No Coward Soul Is Mine

  I hope you will join me in being GOD-centric.