What I Don't Believe

“If I had a God whom I could understand, I would never hold Him to be God.” Meister Eckhart

I find it’s easy to fall into shorthand ways of talking about God and the divine. I think this stems from the desire to make God manageable, containable, understandable. I also think I do myself a disservice when I allow this to happen. Every time I describe God in terms of something that I know, I make God smaller than God is. If I keep making God smaller, then I deny myself the possibility of becoming part of God’s greatness.

Here follow things I do not believe:

1. I do not believe that God is something separate from me or from creation. God is creation. God is in me, sustaining me right now.
2. I do not believe God has a plan. Plans are linear, they move from point A to B to C. God is not constrained by points or goals or targets.
3. I do not believe suffering is a mistake on God’s part. Although I don’t understand it, I accept that it is a part of the world as it is created. My task is to find where God is in it.
4. I do not believe that God prefers me, my family, my country or anything else particularly associated with me to other people and their connections. God doesn’t have to single me out. God loves each one of us infinitely, including people who are much nastier than I am.
5. I don’t believe I have to name God to know God. God is not bound by any theories or rules that I, or anyone else, makes up. God transcends everything and is simultaneously in everything. People can be aware of that without being conscious that they are aware.
6. I do not believe that the afterlife will be like a large family reunion. I don’t know what happens after we die. I just trust.
7. I do not believe I need to know anything about God. I need only to trust enough to allow myself to be open to falling into a Mystery I can’t understand. I hope that God will do the rest.

 

          Karen Rose, OSB