My friend Sharon Noteboom poses a question in the following poem:
Tell Me Please, where do you find God?
Does God exist in our cancer cells, in broken bones,
Is God really Real for you?
Do you see God as Love?
How is God’s love manifested for you?
Are you comforted by God?
Do you find strength for life’s struggles from God?
Tell me true, in our awkward, limited words,
Who is your God?
Do you feel that our Earth is Blessed by God?
Is our God the creator of the Universe?
The Universes?
Perhaps each Universe has its own God.
Could that be?
Tell me please, How do you see God?
More Than…
God of butterflies and rainbows.
God of soft summer rain.
God of the majestic sunset.
God in autumn’s deep colors and pungent, spirited smell.
The mountains stand with God.
The oceans are God’s playground.
The great whale shows God.
And the tiny snail.
Gentle breezes, cool nighttime air.
The birth of a baby.
Puppies, kittens, and polar bears.
Holding hands, a deep soul kiss,
Combing hair. A full tight body hug.
The foot massage or a warm body bath.
In the smell of bread, and brisk forest pine.
Is all this where God resides? Where do you see God?
Do you find God in insects, grasshoppers, mosquitoes, cockroaches?
Can God be found in electricity, exploding bombs, and suns?
Where does God hide when the stampede occurs at the
Holy Mosques, the joyful yearly festivals?
The wars of religion and faith, when both sides have God
on their side? Does God stand back and laugh at the foolish
Shenanigans of we angry humans?
So sure of themselves these righteous ones. Do they all
see God’s blinding light?
God in Tsunamis, exploding volcanoes, floods and forest fires?
God of War and starvation, AIDS, and the Flu?
Does god exist in our cancer cells, in broken bones,
In searing pain?
Where do yo find God? Tell me true.
I want to know.
———— Sharon Noteboom
Riffing on Sharon’s poem, I got to thinking about how I view God. It’s definitely not a personage, a being, or an entity of any sort. The closest I came to finding words for my own understanding of what others call "God" is this:
Matrix
“Ma” playing “tricks”
Gluon of the Universe, physicists tell us, is the binding energy that holds the whole shebang together.
My God, I see as tendrils of consciousness that fill, touch, and connect every fiber of creation.
Am I silly to think that mycelium, the web of fungi that permeates and travels in the soil of every land - is perhaps the original inter-net?
Human fascia connects the wrinkle of our brow to the unexpected pain of a wee toe being stubbed against the Mahogany table leg - wood that grew in soil on some distant island. Did the table leg seek revenge? Did that distant mycelium send a message through the soil that resonated with that ancient hardwood? However inanimate we may think it is, it too is consciousness manifested.
I like to imagine the interconnectedness of all things as a process of unification - integral to all creation. God is verbing and vibe-ing, not a stagnant noun. I balk at the notion that God or Goddess, Yaweh, Allah, Jesus, Buddha, or Mohamed, you or I are removed, out there, apart from, distant and unaffected by the Whole. I cannot conceive that any one person or thing can be removed from the wholeness of creation. Matter is simply condensed energy. Pure Consciousness.
I believe everything in Universe, even “empty” space, is part of what Is. It’s the precursor to that “ISness” that’s the something “bigger than I am.” That’s the “God” which I can get behind, grok, and try to understand.
And what about cancer? Is there Consciousness in that black hole of hunger that’s voraciously eating my friend? Like a black hole in space, the more it eats the hungrier, greedier, and more powerful is its gravitational tug. Cancers and black holes devour whatever is near. The dark to the incredible light of the Universe; the yin to the yang.
It gives me comfort that there are at least 24 more hours of light than of dark in any given year… not just leap year! Neener Neener, darkness; Pfthbbbttt, and take THAT, cancer!
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