Spirituality is...Challenging

Helen Mirren as HRH Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen"

 (c) 2006, Miramax Films

Robin Janvrin:  Prime Minister, I understand how `difficult' her behavior must seem to  you..how `unhelpful'..but try to see  it from her perspective.. (searches for right words) She's been brought up to believe its God's will that she is who she is.

Tony Blair:   I think we should leave God out of it.  It's just not helpful.

There is a rise of atheism (or at least claimed atheism) in our country.  I encounter it on websites such as "Better than Faith" (an atheist site dedicated seemingly to making fun of the religious and their beliefs), on Reddit, which has an entire /subcategory for atheism, and in discussion with friends from work and the community.   The common thread all those folks seem to have is the same as Tony Blair's line from the movie "The Queen".  In dealing with difficult situations, they've chosen a life where they can simply "leave God out of it."

Let's face it. In the game of life sometimes it does seem like it would be easier to leave God on the sidelines, or in the stadium seats or kept in a playbook inside someone's locker that is only opened on Sunday mornings.  It would be easier if we didn't have to ask God such difficult questions like, "Why me? Why this? Why now?"   Its nicer to think its just all the laws of science and rules of the random universe than wrestle with a deity that created us and knows the pains and struggles we face.  It's much less effort to believe there isn't a God, than to try to understand in the darkness around us that there is one. 

It is always easier to claim there are no answers than to ask difficult questions.  But, it's also emptier, unchallenged, and disencarnated.  Spirituality involves embracing the challenge of asking about the hard stuff. 

Someone has to answer for suffering children. Someone has to be responsible for the tears of sorrow a betrayed woman cries into the night. Someone should reckon with the prayers of a man who needs a job, a hope, or a dream. Someone needs to explain Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, and the Virginia Tech shooting.  Someone must respond.

You think that someone is God.

It’s highly possible that God thinks that someone is you.

Wait....What?   

How did this become a staring contest?  How did you just become responsible for the waking nightmares we on earth endure?  I mean, you aren’t responsible for having an answer for all that stuff, are you?

No.

And, yes.

Or, at least you’re responsible to seek it.

Where was God when all that was happening? God was with you.

God With Us – the Divine Partnership

It’s pretty clear from early on in the creation narrative that God is not interested in existing alone. God makes living things swiftly – trees, fish, plants, animals and finally people. With humans (certainly the most involved experiment) God shows a desire not only to be with someone, but to be chosen by someone. God doesn’t want a robot. God wants love – the kind of love only free will can grant. Chosen love.

In order to have that kind of relationship, God creates a system or pattern of being that is a divine partnership. God the creator makes us – the creative. God plants a garden and we tend it. God grows an orchard and we harvest it. God builds the car and we drive it.  Or not.  We can choose not to tend the garden, and then the weeds will overtake the food. We decide not to harvest the trees and the fruit will rot where it started. We can refuse to drive, or worse – drive without caution -- and the vehicle will be more burden than blessing to the world around us.  All the while, even when we are rejecting the tasks set before us, we are still a part of the divine partnership with God. 

So when we ask where God is, the first thing to remember is that God is with us – beside us, around us, within us. God is hoping we choose to tend the garden. God is encouraging us over and over to harvest the fruit, and God is begging us to drive more carefully. God cries when we cry, and God longs like we long. But, God is determined. We started this evolutionary journey of life together and together we will continue.  God’s not likely to push us out of the car and take over, although God will sometimes provide an airbag when we go too fast and hit too hard. The all-seeing deity can be asked for a map (and family and friends who turn out to be good back-seat drivers) to guide us along our way.

Like any partnership, there are rocky times and necessary things that must happen along the way. We should always be honest with God about our needs, our expectations, our fears and our disappointments. Only in truth can we work together effectively.  We must avoid trying to do God’s job, and we must make sure we are not making God entirely responsible for doing our job.  Partnerships change and grow in time, but as long as the love remains even the toughest challenges, biggest losses or greatest disappointments can be overcome. 

Being a part of this partnership is definitely harder than simply writing God off as  far-away or a fantasy. But the life, the joy, the challenge, and the love make it the much better reality.