I was asked today what I think of God? I think that’s what the question was? I was training when asked. Me and a few other men are drawn to the need to train outside with one another. We meet early, before dawn and walk 3 miles along this trail on Mount Finlayson, we carry heavy objects and rotate who carries what, always for 5-minute intervals. Conversational pace. I get absorbed into it, the work that’s being done. The firing of muscles, controlling my breathing, settling into a pace that I can sustain and push when needed. Constantly thinking of the machine and how its running “what needs to be worked out and stretched? Are all my muscles responding as they should? Focus when you can, get settled, and push.”
The God question is always an interesting one. Do you believe in God? How do you believe in God? What God do you serve? Why? Were you raised in house of God? I don’t know if people think about it with much intention until death, some type of death they are close to. I didn’t. God was vacant from my life, I had no time for God. Like many in this disconnected, overly medicated, under loved, pick a team and alliance society that is producing generations of boys that believe they are men and have no need to seek God, they are god in a universe of 1. I was the force that controlled this universe. I grew up into the Catholic church. I went to Catholic K-8, uniforms, mass on Wednesday, the whole kick. We were the family that showed maybe a time or two besides Christmas Eve and Easter. I knew some of the stories but not the meanings. I would draw on the envelopes you put money in if I could find a mini pencil. There were different colored ones for different places to take your money. I would look at the ceiling, look for people I knew, interesting people, the ones in the back or in a pew by themselves, the art, the stained glass, and sculptures. It’s beautiful. The Catholics don’t hesitate to overload the sensory bin with art and theatrics, but I had no relationship with God.
I spend time with Christians. I am not a Christian. I say that with the most love possible while distinguishing myself as NOT being one of them. ( and not ruling out the possibility of coming to an understanding that Jesus Christ is THEE lord and savior of our soul. I’m, to be honest, truly fascinated with this concept right now.) I am learning the history of the world that most live by, willfully or obliviously. This sacred text, that millions follow and tens of millions have lived and died following since it was created. It needs its due diligence to begin to have an opinion on whichever side of the street you land on.
God exists. Something has created this symphony of life we get the chance to create in and cultivate on. Those moments of peace, when everything around you is living, the noise is muted and can understand what the birds are talking about, maybe not the language or words but the purpose of the conversation. The bees are working, you can almost hear the grass and leaves growing around you. This is not by chance or coincidence; this is a gift. An opportunity to do something special, to build a world with our children in mind. Something that will live on after we are buried, and our flesh has rotted away.
The Spirit moves us, it communicates with us and guides us through our trip, it attaches to a spirit that has been with us since inception, the moment of creation. It’s given to us by, yet we are afraid of God, of giving up the “power” we think we hold, apprehension in believing we are anything other than the pinnacle of creation, or giving into something that is greater than we could ever be. It’s a humbling moment when you know you are going to die and that you are a passenger on this ride and never the driver. We call it other things, a creator, or the architect, a supreme being or coincidence, karma, de ja-vu, a “feeling, etc.” you get it, I call it God, and now I need to figure out what the fuck to do with it.
