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Keeping Our Center ~ Day 123

So, yesterday morning when I was posting my reflection on “How do you experience God?” I was looking for appropriate images for our Facebook page and website. But, when I googled “experiencing God” all I got were images of someone’s book with that title and the picture of an old white guy with a beard on the cover.

Now, I’m sorry, if this is your thing that’s fine. But are they (the three male authors) trying to tell everyone that this is the God they are supposed experience? How many experiences of God have they discredited or disqualified simply with that cover? How many people will read that book and miss God because the image of God that they’re supposed to be experiencing has been limited. If a picture paints 1,000 words, this one excludes thousands more. Sorry, again, I guess I’m ranting.

To experience the Divine we need to fling the door wide open to the possibilities before us. Many people don’t think of God as any sort of actual deity, but as a potent energy of love, grace, possibilities, hope, joy, comfort, strength, gentleness, courage and more. For others the Holy One is Spirit, Breath, Wind that breathes life into dead bones, stirs the flames of courage, speaks in soft whispers and takes us places we’d never imagine, and more. The Essence of All That Is can be found in the twinkle of an eye, a belly laugh, a sigh too deep for words, an anguished cry, the innocent wonder of a child, and more!

And more. And more! In anything… everything… there is a spark of the Divine waiting to be acknowledged, to be touched and tasted, heard and held, basked in and gazed at, quieted by and aroused by.

There is also nothing wrong with personifying God for yourself. Hindus have, metaphorically, 33 million (or 330 million, depending on who you talk to) gods and goddesses, reminding us that the Divine has countless faces, but one essence underlying all of them. Perhaps trying on a different “face” for God would help us to experience God differently.

The book we’re reading right now for the Women’s Spirituality Group, Untying the Strong Woman, by Clarrisa Pinkola Estes, gives permission to see Mother Mary as more than the obedient, docile, milk-toast Mary of the Catholic Church. Estes brings her alive into a Mother Goddess in her own right. For Estes and for many people (Hispanics especially) Mary is also the Great Mother who is experienced in the corn, food and earth that nourishes. She is Wind, Fire, Warrior, Heart of Gold and One Who Knows. She is Mother of the Conquered, pouring out strength to those who are oppressed. She is the Girl Gang Leader in Heaven who “calls for those broken to walk as warriors…to enact her holy heart by unfurling the ancient virtues of strength and sheltering, speaking up, standing up, taking action, and creating works in her name and in that of the God of Love she brought to Earth.”

In these challenging times our souls yearn for the one-on-one experience of the Divine more than ever. So, let’s not just fling open that door to new possibilities, let’s tear the blasted thing off its rusty hinges and release ourselves from The God of Limited Images.

Love & Light!

Kaye