Keeping Our Center ~ Day 54

Last week I came across an interesting quote by Alfred Korzybski, an American-Polish mathematician and philosopher who said, “The map is not the territory.” The spiritual extrapolation of this might be, “The Bible is not God” or “The Church is not God.” I’ve had to remind myself of this last one quite a few times over the years. Church organizations, clergy, and people in churches do many, many manipulative, unkind, unloving and judgmental things. It has been more than enough to turn scores of people away from religion. Personally, I’ve had my fair share of doubts about continuing as a pastor as well. But then I remind myself that the church is NOT God!

In my humble opinion, one of humanity’s biggest mistakes when it comes to religion is to believe that God can be captured in a set of words or doctrine. Then people decide that their words are the only right words to describe God. Or their doctrine is the only right way to worship and believe in God. How silly! If God can be contained by a book or a set of rules, then clearly that God is too small!

I always feel inadequate when trying to describe the Divine, or preach about the Essence of All That Is, because I worry about accurately representing a Divine One that is greater than my limited comprehension. Frankly, for God to be God, then he/she/it must (again, in my humble opinion) be bigger than I can comprehend, with a love more pure than mine will ever be, and an unparalleled amount of compassion, grace, and forgiveness.

When God becomes racist, homophobic, sexist, and hung up on rules, and wants to send people to hell, we know for certain that we’ve created God in our image.

Love & Light!

Kaye