PLGRM

Once we acknowledge there’s something beyond us, we might feel a bit of relief or terror or…something. We might all feel different things, but we’re gonna feel and we’re not going to understand it. Humans are creatures who need to make meaning of their lives, so, naturally, we are going to work to make meaning of this new realization.

Part of meaning making is knowing.

I am a person who likes to know things. When I start a journey to learn about a new subject, there is a process I tend to go through. First, comes the “gathering.” I gather all sorts of information. All the information. I voraciously read any article, book, or blog post I can. I watch countless hours of YouTube videos. I do anything I can to help me know. However, after a while, it is not enough for me to take in information, so I move to the next step of trying to do something with that information.

I try to move from knowing to understanding.

Do you ever find yourself having fake conversations or (I’m almost embarrassed to admit this) taking part in fake interviews? I actually do this a lot. Part of my process of learning new information is talking it through, out loud. In doing so, I am trying to make connections between the different pieces of information I’ve learned. I am of the opinion that I don’t fully understand what I’m learning until I can see how the different pieces of information work together. It’s very similar to the process of cooking.

I think I’m good cook, and not because I can flawlessly execute a recipe. I’ve learned how to open up the refrigerator or pantry, see what is available, and am able to put a meal together. Over the years, I’ve learned how different ingredients behave. I’ve developed the ability to know or guess how they might interact fairly accurately. Making connections based on what I know, I develop an understanding.

Where things get really fun for humans is when we start, saying, “Well, if this is true, then maybe that other thing might be true as well. If this is the case, perhaps this other thing is also the case…” Because we are good with patterns, we are able to take some mental leaps.

This is an exciting part of being human.

We are able to develop the ability to do more than just take in information and spit it back out again. We learn how to take different pieces of information and put them together in new and exciting ways. Soon, we start testing to see if the ways life works over here work over there. Why do they work the same? Why don’t they work the same?

We start saying “If this then that” about a whole lot of things.

But here’s the problem with our need to make meaning out of our limited experience of whatever is beyond us: there is very little we actually can know for sure.

But do you think we let that stop us? Not at all! In our excitement and a bit of arrogance, we forge ahead.

We ignore the fact that we know so little about whatever it is we’re calling “God” and move straight to “if this then that.”

This is an understandable thing to do. We have seen the sunset and caught a glimpse of our limited place in creation. And in that glimpse we have understood that we are blessed to be a part of whatever this all is, so we naturally assume we are special and loved. And this is true, but history has shown us our tendency is to keep going.

If This Then That: We assume we’re blessed and no one else is.

OR…

Perhaps we caught a glimpse of our smallness in the scope of creation, yet, instead of feelings of blessing, we felt insignificant. Given all we know about the universe, its vastness and limitlessness, we decide that whatever is beyond us cannot possibly know or even care about us.

If This then That: Humans don’t matter.

Same experience, two different conclusions.

The problem we’re faced with is the same one we’ve always been faced with: there are things we can’t know and don’t know about the universe and our place in it. So where do we go with this recognition that there is something beyond us?

How do we make sense of God when we have so little information to go on?

Different religions have addressed this differently.

Some, like our Buddhist siblings, have taken the potential knowledge of a deity out of the equation all together. There might very well be “something beyond,” but there is very little we can know or say of it. Whatever we can know or say has come as a result of years and years of faithful practice of paying attention to how life is lived. The concern, here, is not in responding to the wishes of a supernatural being, but being content with – and faithful to – the discernible and repeatable pattern or structure of life.

Personally, my deepest respect is for religions like Judaism. Practicing Jews have built an entire way of life according to the “little information” presented to us. Everything they do flows from the central conviction that there is a God and that humanity should love this God with everything we have. This means we must pay close attention to the movement and direction of the course of history and nature. As Evangelist Billy Graham (not a Jew, to be clear) once said:

Can you see God? You haven’t seen him? I’ve never seen the wind. I see the effects of the wind, but I have never seen the wind. There’s a mystery to it”

How amazing is it to have developed a religious system by watching and analyze in “the effects of the wind”?

Sadly, both kinds of religion still fall prey to the same fate our own Christian religion does: theologies and systems of thought get developed that allow for a transactional, self-serving, religious experience. In no case does the religious tradition condone this development, but it happens nonetheless.

In my own Christian religion, this can take different forms. It might be a “you have to be perfect for God to love you” version, or it might be a “God only loves people who are like you” version. Whatever the criteria, the message is conveyed that Jesus loves some people more than others and there are definitely ways to keep in his good graces. Whenever I come into contact with these versions of Christianity I feel like those who are making a case for it are worshipping another God than I am. I wonder if we’re reading the same Bible.

I know there have been accusations, conflicts, and even wars faught over allegiance to the “wrong God” ever since the invention of religion, but it always feel like the version of God that gets trotted out stands at complete odds with the God I experienced on the dunes of White Sands that day.

Why is that? Why would it be the case that humans could start with an experience that convinces us there is a God (and that this God wants the best for us), only to find out that this God we thought might be so great is actually kind of selective and mean?

I’ll tell you why: We don’t let our lack of information stop us as we use our If This Then That reasoning.

As a result, we don’t actually talk about God.

We talk about a version of God that is not – in any way – true or accurate.

We call those versions of God idols, and that’s what I want to explore next Thursday.