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Edited on Tue May-18-10 05:05 PM by Beringia
(This essay is written with a belief that God created the earth. So if you are an atheist, you won't find anything of much value in this article, and I don't want to argue with Atheists or be ridiculed either).
Essay on God
I had been reading some essays on God from a Thomas Merton book, “No Man is an Island”. I looked on Netflix to see if there was a biography on him and there was, lo and behold! He was my father’s novice master at the monastery in Kentucky and so I have always had a special interest and favor for him. There was a short film on him and it opened with him giving a lecture at the place where he unfortunately died, in Thailand. This was a time when he was speaking out against the war and on the subject of black civil rights, and in this day and age, I took pause wondering about the circumstances of his death. In reading Thomas Merton, I felt sure he was real and sincere in his sharing of his ideas on God and our relationship to him. However I thought that, for my specific needs, he was using too many theoretical discussions and going around the subject. I thought within his essays, were many useful truths, but there was too much wrapping paper for me to grasp what I might need at the moment. I also thought that I have wisdom myself and I could write about God too.
In the present day, it does seem like much is happening at a quickened pace to the world. We may be living in a crucial period, a very short one, where things are changing rapidly around us and we must adapt and change. It seems even persons who may have grand and wise lineages, may find themselves in all too humbling circumstances and not understand the life they are living out. In these cases, and I feel I fall into this category to some extent, it would be very helpful to have solid guidelines, though rough cut and oversimplified, that are in alignment with God’s wishes and self to understand our lives, which can be like pebbles in a swift stream.
The fundamental truth is that God has created all that exists. So even though we are human, we are only one creation of God, others being the earth, trees, animals, oceans and the rest. As humans, we have many tribes or lineages and different religions. However even the most divergent peoples are both created by God. So it is, that in the present day, with all the discussions and policies about diversity, that we really need to take this to heart and see all other people as having the same parent, God.
I believe that we carry our evolutionary history in our DNA and also our human cultural history. As individuals, we come into our present lives, coming from some lineage. In my own case, I have come to believe my lineage is Christian, very likely the branch that has remained outside of the traditional church, such as the Essenes and modern day Theosophists. I also have been reading and contemplating more about God and humans. I believe that we are on a path to realizing our union with God. As humans, we have been developing and striving for this in various ways through the last several thousand years. To be one with God is to reach a higher state of natural spirituality. Being that it is something natural and right, I often wonder why it also seems so elusive and esoteric, being one with God. It seems difficult at times to live life at the level of maturity required to be one with God. I believe it is easy and hard, having to do with the daily approach toward one’s life.
I believe that being one with God is a choice and also a realization. If God has a plan for the earth and humans, then we are living out that plan. However all life is given by God and our lives are a living out of God’s plan. We have our true nature that unfolds because of God and this happens whether we are completely aware of it or not. However to acknowledge God is to be aware of being a creation of God and to be openly aware that you are one part of a magnificent, grander whole. This is why understanding yourself and becoming more adept at reaching the deeper parts of your self and expressing them are to grow closer to your plan as an individual soul by God. That is why the saying, “God created you to become yourself”, is a fundamental truth and much other logical truth flows from this. To become more and more truly yourself is to feel more love for yourself and also to feel God’s love.
I believe that humans are meant to develop to a point where we do not feel the need to be acclaimed ourselves as the highest, though we are able to act upon the earth in ways other creatures are not able to. However I feel that our fullest development will be that we are able to realize the greatness and fragility of life on earth and to become excellent caretakers of this earth as we dwell upon it. So that our capabilities for compassion, awe, tender loving care can be used in our relationship with other human beings and also with the earth and her inhabitants. This translates into the world of animal welfare (which is the cause I am working on), and animal rights as well, because a highly developed human can place themselves at the service of helping animals, caretaking them for their own sake. Our laudable skills of manipulation of our environment can be used to caretake the environment.
In my own personal history, the milieu that I grew up in had many exciting avenues such as equality of women with men, rights of animals to live free of harm, the peace movement aimed at stopping for-profit wars by government. I became aware of these issues at a young age and was championing them in discussions I had with friends and people I met. Then came the teenage and young adult years and for me many of the foundations I had for security seemed to be gone. This was also the time of talk therapy and analysis. I started thinking that the way to coping and survival was to talk out problems and figure out where the fault lay. I also felt shame for my areas of feeling weak or troubled. And I felt a strong desire not to get a job that was stilting and where I had to conform to make a living. So all of these various emotional and strategic journeys went on and are still going on in my life. And I think about these things in terms of trying to be mature and live with a knowledge of God in my daily life. One thing that I believe now as an older adult, is that delving into problems, looking where to place fault can be a self-perpetuating journey that builds negative approaches. So I have dropped that, where I can. And looking at the situation now, I think we are born into the modern day with a general need to hit the ground running, like a newborn colt or fawn does. They have to be ready to run with their parents at a young age to survive and grow to adults. Calamities and troubles pile up if we try to ask so much the question, “why is my life hard or why aren’t I living the perfect life I deserve”. This of course is a great place where believing in God and having some solid tools regarding our lives within the greater life of God becomes valuable. If you don’t compare your life to a supposed more perfect life, or to someone else’s life, then that takes away the feeling of being burdened by the life you were born into.
To know you are part of the greater life that is God is to feel deeply tied to life itself and to move through daily activities with the wonderful attribute called grace, which encompasses patience, clear seeing, generosity, insight and vision. It also gives calm courage to know you have only to reach deeper into your true self to be living the authentic life that is part of God’s life.
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