My Life as Journey to God

This was a paper I was required to write for my ongoing training at Shalom Mountain, and I thought it might be of interest. I did *not* have a choice as to title! :-) - Gene

My life as journey to God

I would not have said my life was journing towards God a few years ago, as my conception of God was pretty unfavorable. Today, I see God more as life, as what is, as reality, as lack of denial, as awareness. And as such, my journey my entire life has been towards awareness and becoming more awake, towards the life within me, towards being able to tell the difference between reality and my fantasy.

I grew up fundamentalist, and God was a pretty nasty guy - vengeful, fearful, full of wrath. Suspiciously, God seemed awfully similar to my parents. God was not around very much when things were going well, or when I was discovering the world with delight - God seemed more designed to zap me when I strayed outside the invisible electric fence surrounding my little world - I never knew exactly where the line was, and the pain seemed arbitrary and unnecessarily harsh.

I disgarded that concept of God when I was 25, and accepted the only alternative I knew - that the world was mechanical, following the laws of physics, and our minds and emotions were simply extremely complex instances of machines, ultimately with no more meaning than a machine.

Eventually, I saw that certain experiences - a sense of morality, seeking for purpose and fulfillment, etc., - could never be explained by science, even if they were nothing but the results of complex machines - that our experience, no matter what the theory said, was that these things were real and had rules of their own. In short, I started believing in a spiritual world - a world with its characteristics that acted quite independently of the physical world and our ability to predict and infer results. Whether or not it was all just composed of atoms became irrelevant, because whether or not it was, I had to deal with experience, not theory.

Eventually, I started to embrace a new meaning of God. Looking at the universe as experience instead of cause and effect, I discovered I already had an emotional relationship with the universe - I liked some of the things I encountered, didn't like others, and resented some things the universe had given me. I was already emotionally involved. Whether or not there was a God didn't matter; the fact is that I had to deal with what I experienced, and I experienced an emotional relationship with the universe.

Today, I feel that whatever is within me that keeps me searching, seeking, that keeps drawing me towards something higher, that has something to do with God. It is the life force that has moved evolution to this point of conscious creatures slowly waking up and seeking their purpose, and it is the life force that keeps me awake, seeking, alive.

How this affects my work with others, including the Shalom work, is this - I see healing as primarily a coming out of denial, becoming aware of what is inside of us, and embracing not only who we are but also the life force within us, calling us to something higher. God is simply what is, the Great I Am, and becoming honest and aware is to come to know God.

I think everyone has deep within them this pull towards health, wholeness, connection, a sense of oneness, as well as a pull to a personal destiny, a place in the universe, a reason for their life. The answers do not lie in physics or science - indeed, their answers lead to despair, because they of necessity must conclude everything follows meaningless laws, and we are helpless puppets to those laws. But our experience is otherwise - our experience is that we desire something higher, and the desire itself is something that is difficult to explain, other than through the evolutionary growth of awareness, consciousness, and desire for purpose that we see in ourselves.

The Shalom process, and those like it, help a person come face to face with a part of themselves they may have denied, and gives them the opportunity to know that part of themselves in a strong atmosphere of love and acceptance, instead of the self-loathing that often accompanies exposing our shadow. The love allows them to embrace what they perhaps otherwise could never have embraced, and come to know themselves a bit better, come to know the reality about themselves a bit better, which is to say, come to know God better. And it's my experience that as each of us comes to know ourselves better, we discover we are more similar than disparate - which means we are tending towards one reality, rather than each finding things incomprehensible to another. The resulting sense of oneness, of belonging, causes us to want more, and fulfills some of that need for purpose and direction in our lives.

So my personal journey to re-embrace God is closely tied to the work I do - which I see as helping others to do the same.

Comment posted by Gene
at 4/17/2006 5:28:00 PM
That is still very fragile. It is something I hope I'm learning. I am learning a bit to go more with the flow, to dance, to let there be a give and take between reality and my fantasy of what could be. There is an intimacy there of a sort, I suppose.

There is a lot I have to accept that I don't like - someone said peace is choosing what already is. If God is truly what is, then the greatest commandment becomes "Thou shalt love what is with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength" - something I have certainly not achieved yet.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 4/17/2006 4:33:00 PM
Your journey touches something deep in me in my own journey. But something you said puzzles me; the old God of your past only visited to pass negative judgement and your new God seems to be simply 'what is'. You said you have feelings, but does your new God express feelings towards you,too? I want to know - do you sense a personal intimacy of give and take with 'what is'?

Comment posted by Gene
at 4/17/2006 8:12:00 AM
Much more than in the past, although there is still some resentment, especially towards the church that taught such doctrine to innocent children. Obviously, I still have healing to do.

Comment posted by Anonymous
at 4/17/2006 8:08:00 AM
Have you reconciled yourself with having been raised fundamentalist? Are you able to visit the territory with a compassionate heart when you work with people who are wrestling with these issues?

- Laurence