God is not Santa Claus

There is no seeking God without finding myself.

What if every single day of your life you woke up in the morning with the absolute power to make your life easier, more tolerable? Maybe even better and more enjoyable? Wouldn’t you take it? To me, that is what God is: the daily choice to live as if. To live as if love was the deepest influence in my life, to live as if meaning was embedded in everything that happens, to live as if I have power over myself and choose to do wonderful things with it. 

Many people who know me, know my commitment to human rights, know of my love for all beings, are surprised to find out about my strong relationship with Life, the Goddess, and all things Spirit. This is because they are used to a God that has taken too much airtime over the past few centuries – the bearded dude in the sky that is tracking your every move like a perv and that is not a whole lot of fun. So they can’t imagine me being close buddies with that one. And they are right, I’m not. But I’m besties with a Life Force that is constantly hooking me up in life – which does NOT mean she’s like Santa Claus. 

Folks disappointed with religion and spiritual life tell me that they can’t believe in God given the state of the world. “If God was all powerful then why is the world so messed up?” Part of the problem with accessing spiritual power is that many folks have been taught about a God that has been colonized, stratified, and removed from daily life. In my practice, there is no God “out there” without Her being in here. There is no seeking God without finding myself. There is no sin other than the ways in which I still need to surrender to Life herself and what she’s teaching me. But many people would like their God to be like Santa Claus: does no wrong, knows all of our wishes, and makes them come true. What if instead of Santa Claus, you understood God as the Mystery, the Life Force, the Source? 

If you expect a Santa Claus of a God, you will most certainly be disappointed. I would be too. Looking around the world it is so obvious that there is no omnipotent being making sure justice prevails. In fact, it seems quite the opposite. Bullies at the global level get away with despicable acts, the natural world continues to be destroyed with seemingly very little each of us as individuals can do, and, in just plain English, shit is fucked.

The fuckedupness of the world is real, and it is something that I work on transforming and alleviating every day of my life. But I don’t believe that humans do horrible things because there is no God. I believe we do horrible things because that is part of human nature. I believe in free will AND in destiny. I believe in the inherent goodness of people AND in our boundless ability to do harm to each other. I believe that paradox is Life’s organizing principle, and the fact that we have messy, painful, unfair lives doesn’t mean that they are devoid of Spirit. It means that they are human lives on Earth. For me, when I make a choice in the morning to act as if there is Love all around me, life gets better. God can be as simple as that. But if you expect a Santa Claus of a God, yeah, then there is definitely no such thing, and be ready for disappointment.