Do you believe in God?

I guess it depends on what you mean by “god.” I don’t think my conception of “god” is the same as what most people think of, but it wasn’t always like that. For those who aren’t interested in this story, I’ll stop here. For those who are, you can read the rest in the extended text.

I have to start this story way back in my lifetime, although the story begins much further back than that… we won’t get into that right now. When I was a little girl, I had this growing sense that the world was not exactly the way most people think it is, the way we’re all told it is, and rather than just accept something that seemed (and felt) untrue, I began a lifetime quest to discover that which seemed/felt true to me. I had the usual Christian upbringing. I went to church every Sunday. I was baptized and confirmed Lutheran. But through all of that, something seemed missing. My questions about the Bible and the stories in it had no satisfactory answers, even from those trained in seminary schools. I asked the hard questions, the ones which even my child-like logic confounded the scriptures. I was told to just accept it, to believe on faith alone. But that way lies emptiness.

The people in the churches, whom I saw every Sunday, seemed hypocritical to me. Believing a trip to the church each weekend was enough to forgive their sins, wipe the slate clean for another week, while during the week, they could screw each other over in business, or even literally sleeping around. Even in church, they talked behind each others’ backs, sneered at those who didn’t give what they thought was “enough” in the collection plate, deemed themselves as better than others (”holier than thou?”) based on silly things like clothes or cars or who they “knew” or the size of their homes. They sang hymns without really understanding what the songs were all about. It all just seemed so shallow and lifeless to me… so false, and I wanted no part of that. So I left the church.

For a long time (many years) I just wandered. I read about all kinds of religions, studied their books of scriptures, examined their tenets of faith. Each one had its grains of truth (and their hypocrisies), if you looked long and hard enough, but none of them had enough of the Truth to feed my soul or even come close to filling the emptiness inside. And the world itself showed me the ugliness in the hearts of those who professed to being religious, not that I was perfect, but at least I didn’t pretend to be. I also noticed that pretty much every religion I studied cast women (the bearers of life itself) into this secondary role, as if they were somehow not worthy, not good enough… for “god.”

And so I dug deeper. I began studying ancient history and ancient beliefs about deity. And I found that a long, long time ago things were much different, conceptions of deity were nothing like what they are now. The earliest physical evidence we have of humankind’s conception of deity are carvings of female form. Some mistake these as fertility symbols thus, once again, relegating that which is feminine to secondary importance.

I discovered that there were whole religions founded around this feminine principle… many of them are the neo-pagan faiths of today. Some have borrowed bits and pieces from several different cultures. Most are modelled after christianity, complete with priests and priestesses, structured in some sort of hierarchy of power over other individuals. A few are downright ridiculous, and I knew I’d feel foolish doing some of the rituals and various other things people of these faiths are expected to do.

And then one day, I became seriously ill. My abdomen swelled up like I was 9 months pregnant in a matter of 24 hours which, when I think about it now, is rather telling considering the condition of the female body just before giving birth. I went to the emergency room (a real fiasco which I won’t go into), and ended up in surgery. While in surgery, I died… probably only momentarily on this spacetime, but subjectively, I was gone a very long time. This was the second time this happened to me, but that’s not important to the story.

My words cannot do this story justice. I’m painfully aware of that, but I will tell this as best I can, with what words I have. When I died, some part of me left my body and I went elsewhere. Where? Who can say. Was it heaven? I don’t know, but it wasn’t like anything I’d read or heard about before. I can only describe it as like being somewhere in outer space in utter darkness. And then from somewhere began music playing from far, far away. And with each note I heard, a light began to shine, like stars revealing themselves to me, all around. At this point, I became aware that I wasn’t in my body. It didn’t worry me in the least. I was a being of pure energy, without form yet still an entity, aware and cognizant of everything around me. As the music began to build, I became aware of a vast plane of stardust… specks of particles, like multi-colored dust swirling in perfect rhythm with the music. The music was unlike anything I’d ever heard before or since; variations of an endless perfect theme. And each of those specks of stardust was a being much like myself, yet differentiated… as individuals. And at the same time, we were all one. And I felt such love emanating from every single one, it was ecstasy and I was awed by the whole of it. I have never felt such wholeness, such perfection, before or since.

And so I began to sing with them. As the music emanated from me, I noticed that each tone that resonated with the music formed something in creation. It was as if the music created all that is. I didn’t see any white robed figure with a long beard, ruling over all things. I didn’t see anything I could call “god.” I spent a very long time there, and it was very tempting to just remain there, in perfect love and the oneness of it all… but then, I remembered my family and my loved ones, and that they would miss me. In a flash, I was back in the hospital, waking up in my room. My husband said later that when he walked into the room, I was as if dead, my skin was grey, and he was shocked when I moved.

But I’ll tell you this: for three months after, I could still hear that music and feel that feeling. And I was changed by it.

I began to see that certain people, doing the things they do, were part of something larger than themselves; larger than their own little lives in their little towns. I saw them as those specks of light in a vast interconnecting web, like a network of souls that just goes on forever and ever, through lifetime after lifetime. Those we love, we have loved before and will love again. Those whose friendship seems “instant,” there’s a reason for that. I see the divinity in people. I get angry when they don’t see it in themselves and act accordingly and in step with their divine purpose. Those who don’t care, those who are numb to all feeling, those who sleepwalk through life… the only so-called sin is a wasted life.

Addition: I realize that I didn’t quite answer the original question, “Do you believe in God?” My answer to that is: I recognize the sacredness of life and that which is life-giving. I found the divine within myself, and when She loves, I love her fiercely.