One of the subjects that always seems to be a pressing personal quest when you’re on a different spiritual path is dealing with the words and terms that we use to connect to and define the Divine. Do we call it The One, Source, Spirit, God, or Goddess? Does it even matter? I think it does, to some extent, because as little children we often associate a certain image or figure with the idea of God. If you were raised in a Christian faith you tend to have some form of Jesus in your mind when someone says God even if your actual spiritual path is completely different now. It’s sort of mental knee-jerk reaction because it may have been a seed planted and cultivated for many years when the soil of our spirit was quite fertile and pliable. So I think that as we awaken to the fact that we are truly spiritual beings have a human experience and not the other way around we do come to a point where we have to figure out how we really deal with the “G” word.
I’ve talked before about how when I was little I was sort of raised Catholic. I wasn’t dragged off to church kicking and screaming, in fact I had to ask my Mom to take me to church because neither of my parents cared to go on their own. However, as a kid in CCD classes, it was required that we attend a certain number of services during the year. I always loved going to Sunday morning service because it seemed so grand, which is one of the reasons it wasn’t much of a surprise to me later to find I was drawn to spiritual practices that involved various forms of ritual. But one thing I never liked, especially as I got older, was what Father Gorman, the pastor at my church, would say. I knew early on that Catholicism wasn’t for me but I still loved going to church.
[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Coming Soon” size=”16px” lh=”16px” color=”#00602A”]<—St. Aloysius Church…where I spent a lot of Monday nights as a kid in CCD classes. [/fontpress]
As I got older and had begun practicing Wicca in my teens, I stopped feeling comfortable with the term “God” in favor of “Goddess”. I really still had no idea what the meant for me; did it mean there was a woman sitting in the sky instand of a man who was watching over my every move? Why did it matter if it was male or female? Keeping in mind I was about 13 at the time, the internal discussion makes sense. But I talked myself out of using the word “God” almost completely. And if I did use it, it was always coupled with the word “Goddess”.
Jump ahead almost 25 years to now and I find myself coming to the end of another dialogue with myself that’s been going on for about five years or so. Again I found myself faced with figuring out what the word “God” meant for me. Truly God is different for everyone. As they say “there are many paths to God but they all lead to the same place.” I didn’t believe that when I was 13 or even when I was 25. Today I believe it without any doubt in my mind or spirit. I also don’t have the animosity towards Christianity or Jesus that I did at 13 or 25.
I don’t agree with much of the church’s teachings but that doesn’t make the church my enemy like it did then, nor does it make every Christian my enemy like it did then. I can’t even begin to tell you how many nights and weekend afternoons were wasted debating religion in AOL chat rooms when I was in my early 20s. And for what? Very little; it never changed my mind or the minds of anyone else and often left me very angry. Now I’ve adopted a “live and let live” spiritual attitude. Beleive what you wish, just don’t impose it on me or expect me to believe as you. You walk your path up the hill to see God and I’ll walk mine and we’ll meet at the top.
And as for Jesus…well I do believe there was a man who lived that taught peace, healed those he could heal, and who tried to impart harmony to those around him. In my heart I have never felt he was the Jesus of the Bible {certainly not the King James or New American Standard versions, which are the two I’ve read}. I do feel he was much more like the New Thought or Pagan spiritual priests we see today teaching about peace, love, and abundance. He’d be one of us spiritual hippies, not a bible thumping Christian.
But what about “God” as term today?
[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Coming Soon” size=”16px” lh=”16px” color=”#00602A”]One of my favorite Goddess statues, one of Diana, which overlooks my whole office from atop a bookcase. —>[/fontpress]
Here’s how I see it, and it’s something that I figured out a while ago I think but just in the last month really got comfy with. “God”, as a term, doesn’t matter. God is everything. God is The One, Source, Spirit, and even Goddess. If I say “God, help me to understand this situation,” as part of a prayer I could just as easily say “Spirit, help me to understand this situation”. Because for me God, Spirit, Source, and Goddess are all one. Naturally if I want to specifically talk about a facet of God, like Buddha, Diana, or Kali, then I can call on that specific energy thread from the Universe. But they are all chords in the single song of God.
I started to come to terms with this understanding years ago when I started reading Doreen Virtue’s books. She always talks about God, and often she is specifically talking about Jesus (but often she’s clear that she does mean Jesus and not Source). When she would talk about God in my mind I would replace it with Goddess, because I was still so uncomfortable with the idea of “God” and always thinking that meant a bearded man in the sky. Eventually that got a bit mentally tiresome and as I got down with the God/Goddess/Spirit as one idea and it resonated in my Crown and Solar Plexus chakras for me, I started to be more comfortable with using the word God.
During January I’ve been watching Wedndesay and Sunday streaming services with the Agape Spiritual Center from the Los Angeles area and at first, because they always use the word “God”, but they mean Spirit/Source unless they are being more specific, I had to settle into this conversation again. And I’m becoming more and more comfortable with saying the word God but knowing that God isn’t one being but the infinite energy of spirit and creation in the world and encompassing all the divind beings, spirits, and ascended masters.
How do you view God?
Do you see the word “God” as something that implies a specific spiritual being?
How have you made peace with the Divine Source?
I tend to agree with what you’re saying here; I believe whatever you call your higher being, it’s all the same, everyone’s path ends at the same destination.
I really have to disagree, and that happens often. Most people I know would say exactly what you’ve written here, but it’s never been true for my experience. I wasn’t raised in any religion, even atheism, so I’ve avoided knee-jerk reactions to words like ‘God,’ but I also choose never to use God/Goddess/Spirit as proper nouns. While I will use ‘Source’ because it conveys some energy that is behind it all, the universe, everything, I have never viewed it to be involved or aware of our lives. I’m not even sure if conscious would be a fair description of it.
I’ve been dealing with a lot of issues with my faith lately, but even still, I’ve been a hard polytheist my entire life. I knew this before I knew what such a term meant. I spent a lot of time reading all the mythologies I could find (and understand) in local libraries, whether it was the New Testament, stories of Greek heroes, or Irish folk tales. I’ve never once believed that all gods are one God; I’ve just never been able to be an essentialist in my religious practice. Certain gods can share similar characteristics, personality traits, even phenotypes, but just like with humans, this doesn’t mean they are the *same.* They’re all individuals.
Perhaps my mind will change in another few years; it really will all depend on my experience. I would definitely fit in better with most of my fellow Pagans if it did change, hahah~
This may sound like a cold approach, but I have been researching for many years now to help myself deal with the question of the nature of god. It has been very difficult for me, given my protestant raising and my intent to know facts that go along with mythology. I’m still working on this one, but I know that there is a divine presence in our lives, at least one. I’ve had enough experience to know that. Now I am working on conceptualizing this for my children, which I am finding very difficult. It is very hard to teach that which you yourself know very little or are unsure about. I am also concerned with their freedom of belief. I feel they need a foundation, but I want them to know that they can decide, as I did. That’s why questions like this are so important to ask, even after you think you know the answer; it keeps the conversation open, and makes it possible for new ideas to enter. Knowing that there is a greater presence, and that there is the possibility of a goddess (this was a new and very welcome concept to me as a teen and now) seems to be enough, but I am still working on how to share that with them directly. I also worry about their cousins, who are wonderful and the best you could expect…except that they are VERY evangelistic christians for their age. I don’t want to distance the beautiful relationship they have now. My children are still rather young, but it is still a concern. I guess that is part of the nature of my own delay in setting a more solid idea to the concept of god.
Thanks for the post! It was good timing for me.
I haven’t had many issues using the word God ever really – but I was brought up Atheist, not christian, and in the beginning I really preffered goddess. I usually call her just God now – I usually refer to god as a She or Her so that there’s a bit of both genders in there, I like it that way.
I reckon She’s the underlying current in everything everywhere – god’s the General Whole for me, the whole sum of all the godliness, but I do work with individual gods and goddesses and they are individual. I don’t see why She can’t be all things and seperate things and personalities at the same time. God doesn’t have to make linear logical sense to us – we can only process so much being human.