Okay, Fausto is correct, of course. My favorite description of God is "limitless, undying love" -- I respond to love with love. When I think of the special, transcendental moments I have experienced, it always involved the feeling of being surrounded, immersed, in love.
But back to the question ... how would you respond if you heard someone say "I love God" in your church?
If you love God ... would you admit it?
Fear holds us back. We don't want to appear like Miley Cyrus at the MTV movie awards, waving her hand up at the sky and saying, "I wanna thank God. Hellooo! The only reason I’m here!" We don't want to annoy the "non-God" people. We know what we mean by it, but we presume that others will misunderstand.
We don't want to look stupid.
If we aren't willing to talk about these things in church -- a Unitarian Universalist church -- a religion that talks about the free and responsible search for truth and meaning ... is there something wrong?
Maybe, maybe, if it makes us feel a little queasy inside to think about saying "I love God" in church, maybe that's not "good" fear, the kind of fear that keeps you from touching a hot stove or wearing skintight fuschia leggings with a tube top. Maybe that's a sign that we're taking a risk, going outside our comfort zone.
Maybe we should embrace it as a sign of growth.
Unitarian Universalists are brave folks. We invite Muslims to speak in our churches a week after 9/11, we face public scorn marching for what we feel is right. We willingly go to jail to prove a point. We speak up to the bigot in the office.
But in our churches, will we admit to a love of the divine? Will we say, with no irony, "I love God"?
I love God.
Now excuse me, I need a Tums.
I don't love God because I have trouble loving abstractions and I don't believe in a personal God.
ReplyDeleteBut I do believe in God and have said so many times in UU contexts and nobody's ever raised an eyebrow unless I was intentionally getting into a debate.
I fundamentally don't get the "afraid to talk about God" thing. But maybe I've just been going to the wrong churches, or the right ones.
CC
who observes that if Einstein talked about God, few of us have room to judge in the intelligence department, though he didn't talk about "loving God" either I suppose.
Okay....me too. Major revelation for me. If the developmentally appropriate response to talking to a young child about God is to say God is Love, which has worked well in my household. I should take that into my own heart. I definitely believe in Love and love love. Don't know how that will go over in my UU circles, but I'm gonna give it a whirl and see what happens.
ReplyDelete"God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." 1 John 4:16
ReplyDeleteI was looking up the citation for that verse and was surprised to discover this. Haven't read it yet, but I will, very soon.
"If we aren't willing to talk about these things in church -- a Unitarian Universalist church -- a religion that talks about the free and responsible search for truth and meaning ... is there something wrong?"
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely something wrong whenever U*Us fail, or indeed obstinately refuse. . . to talk about *anything* that might warrant a free and genuinely *responsible* search for truth and meaning. It is wrong for U*Us to fail or refuse to talk about the anti-religious intolerance and bigotry that still festers in too many U*U "churches" and which causes some God believing people to fear to talk freely and openly about their belief in God and their beliefs about God. It is wrong for U*Us to fail or refuse to talk about various other injustices and abuses that still make the U*U World a less than safe and welcoming place for some people. There is something very wrong when U*Us attempt to censor and suppress those people who are ready, willing, and able to talk about U*U injustices, abuses, and hypocrisy.
For the record, God is not love and love is not God. One need only engage in a free and genuinely *responsible* search for the truth and meaning of that less than well founded belief that is all too common in liberal religions. One need only realistically assess how the world actually works to realize that God is not love and to seriously question just how loving God is. If God was love, and love was God, we would be living in a very different world than the one we currently inhabit.