The question asked of me was about how I envision my personal higher power, that spiritual presence that loves and cares only for me. . . .and I was left feeling silent and empty within. I mean, I believe in God, because I have experienced God in very real and personal ways, but to believe in a spiritual presence that loves and cares for me personally? Well, I have just never experienced anything at all even remotely resembling this kind of spirituality.
I have heard people talk about their personal relationship with God. . . .or the personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. . . .so I can't help but wonder if these are the answer for other people, but I have just never experienced a feeling of being held or contained in a spiritual sense in a way that makes me feel personally loved and cared for. I feel loved as a part of all things, but never have I felt loved and cared for personally.
The unsettling part of the question is in the truth that I don't believe in this kind of God, and I never have. I look out at the world and see the amazing dance of life and there is no question that divine intelligence is behind this magical creation. I have experienced Grace when I have not deserved it. . . .I have felt protected in ways that I can't explain in human language. . . .but to believe in a spiritual presence that loves and cares for me personally? I just don't believe in this kind of fantasy. . . .and, yes, I do believe this is a delusional fantasy, a wishful thinking on the part of human beings.
How could I possibly believe in a God who loves and cares for me personally, and then juxtapose that belief with all of the "evidence" that belies this kind of love. When people love and care for one another, they don't stand by and just watch while "bad things" happen. . . .at least not the way I define love. So if God is so powerful and omnipresent, then how can this all loving, kind, and compassionate higher power just watch and do nothing to intervene?
God doesn't intervene, because God isn't an interventive God. . . .how could I possibly believe that God who makes choices like that? People talk about God's plan, and how we can't understand it, and I don't judge anyone who believes this way of conceptualizing God, but it makes no sense to me on any level. If God has a plan, then that plan includes cancer and the helpless being tortured and abused by those with a greedful lust for power and control? God's plan involves war and murder and genocide and being hung from a tree because of the color of your skin?
If all of this is part of God's miraculous plan, then I want nothing to do with this kind of God, and that's the deepest most heart felt truth I can speak, and I don't give a flying rat's ass what God thinks about my refusal to get on board with this kind of world, if this is, in fact, the great plan of God. So, yes. . . .I absolutely question God's plan, and I have no problem doing so. . . .because if all of these experiences are part of God's great plan, then the promise of heaven is just one more layer of the great lie.
. . . .and just when I have resigned myself to the life of a spiritual orphan, the unexpected happens, and turns everything upside down. . . .
I am literally in the middle of writing this blog, preparing to type the words, "I am nothing but a spiritual orphan," when out of the blue I receive a text message from my nephew (whom I rarely hear from) that reads: "Hope ur doing well. Thought I'd drop u a line and let you know that I'm thinking about u =]" and my heart is cracked wide open. Is this text message a mere coincidence? A random act of kindness? Or did something greater than the both of us motivate my nephew to send me a text message with exactly the words needed to challenge my lack of belief in a spiritual presence that loves and cares for me personally?
So, I don't know. . . .if there is a higher power that loves and cares about me personally, then I would really like to become personally acquainted with this love, because walking through life as a spiritual orphan is not always a warm and fuzzy way to live the journey. . . .and if you are out there, then I really do want to know you. The funny thing is that I have always thought that I did have a personal relationship with God, but I am just now, in this moment realizing that I have never felt (or even considered) that God might want to have a personal relationship with me.