(7) Ideas About God

Essentially I am going to take a three-pronged approach to this
"idea" of God. Thus I'll be addressing Presence, Providence, and
Perspective.

PRESENCE: This part of the discussion will focus upon my own
more immediate personal experience in relation tto God. Like most
people sometimes my experiences have held a numinous quality
for me, occasionally in extraordinary ways--whether in dreams, in
visions, in locutions. I don't put down these experiential occurrences--
nor does the Bible or modern psychologists. It's how you react to
such (I guess) that determines whether you might be crazy or not.

Anyway, I am not going to plague you by discussing my dreams in
detail. They are mine, only mine. Rather I will emphasize that some
20 years back (or more) I experienced what the Native Americans
call "Big Dreams." They were special, full of numinous content--and
unless you are a dullard, you know when you have them!

At the time of these Big Dreams I was at one of the lowest points in
my life. And these special dreams came to my rescue. I approached
these dreams as a series and wrote them down. At first they seemed
to be addressing my problems, and various dream characters were
trying to come to my rescue. The major gist of the dreams was that
of kindness and love and hope.

In these dreams, too, I was introduced to a Great Presence--and it's
here where I must be honest. I encountered the Divine Feminine, a
Great Mother who was a nourisher and a savior. There was also a
numinous Masculine figure in the guise of a Great Abbot. In depth
psychology one can say we are dealing with the anima/animus
energies. Perhaps so, but all through they were very, very numinous
beings. Eventually I experienced the Great Eye of God and was
given some direction in no uncertain terms!

These dreams also gave me insight as to my soul. I learned from
whence I came, and I was directed to be "as good a soul as I could
be." And in due course I eventually was able to determine from
these dreams a certain direction that I should take in this life.

Eventually I came to the end of these Big Dreams; and upon
pondering them altogether, I was utterly astonished. I was
astounded, because I was suddenly hit with the realization that
there was SOMEONE far beyond, far more intelligent, far more
than myself involved in all this!

Now depth psychologists oft call this situation an encounter with
the "Greater Self." It's there, present within us. Well I certainly
could not deny that there indeed was a great Presence that
came to me, nourished me, informed me of the significance of
my soul and of my life, and actually really *cared.* Having said
this, for me this Presence is very much up-front and personal.
And we worked together to put the pieces of my life back together,
even better than they were before! In a sense I was re-born.

Now it's easy to diminish this experience, assuming it's all just
in my mind and part-and-parcel of my mind's mechanism.
Maybe so--but if so, than we were created this way and it's a
gift of kindness provided by the Creator. But I have chosen to
think there's much more than this. The numinous qualities as
well as the encounters with the Numinous in its special forms
made it clear to me that there is (and remains) a Great Presence
that awaits our awareness--and, in turn, tries to help make us
more aware of who we are in relation to Such.

PROVIDENCE: The dictionary relates that this word is about
"care and control by a deity." This is the idea of both a
transcendent and imminent God that stands in its *own
freedom* to determine its own actions.

I stress this idea of freedom, because we humans too often
conjure over this and that, of what God must be! Perhaps we
can't help ourselves, but our opinions of God are *not*
necessarily God. So--with Providence there's this free God
that remains outside our control, a God that simply IS what it is.

Over my lifetime I have become less and less inclined to read
into God's actions. They happen, and sometimes they seem
bad as well as good. It's hard to explain a loving, caring God to
hurricane victims or to people in terrible, terrible pain that can
seem so endless. I, for one, will not presume to thrust the
"Summa Bonum," the All Good God, on people who are suffering,
oft innocently suffering.

The "Theodicy Problem" remains, and unto this day we keep
trying to figure it through. Nonetheless, I can speak of provi-
dential acts in my life that I must admit have been very helpful
to me. Providence has seen fit to play into my life with both
negatives and positives. Over time, too, I have learned that
there's major meaning in "closed doors" and "open doors."
What this means, IMO, is that these varied circumstances that
Providence provides offer us a *freedom of choice.* This is
where Providence gets personal, I guess. We can choose to
make the best of it, or not.

However, it would seem there are also impersonal acts by
Providence. Providence works in History, in social and cultural
decisions, as well as in Nature. The process of this universe
isn't just about our personal edification. It would seem that
Providence--as well as Presence--also plays out on this
Grander Scale of Being. And at our level of consciousness,
we cannot presume to know the *why* of providential action.

The old Stoics said just accept the acts of Providence. But
we have moved beyond just mere acceptance. We do rush
into assumptions and judgments, but we also are beginning
to see (or at least sense) the *challenge* that can stand behind
the movement of Providence. Perhaps providential acts are a
"prompter" that can move us along unto higher levels of
consciousness and being--if we stand aside from out own
need to control and accept the challenge of these acts. If we
rose to the challenge, so much pain and suffering in this world
could be eliminated.

PERSPECTIVE: Here the focus would seem more on us than
upon God. We seem *not* to be able to not have ideas and
imagery about the Numinous. It's in our heads, it's in our
cultures and societies, and it's just as much in the heads of
atheists--otherwise they wouldn't try so hard to deny God.
Everybody is touched at some level by a perspective of God.
There's cults and creeds, and opinions throughout about who
God might be.

As for myself, I love playing with all these perspectives that have
come my way--mainly through my studies. Though these days I
am studying Taoism, I'm mostly Western-oriented. And just my
perspective, but I view God in terms of a CONTINUUM--revealing
hirself slowly down through the ages via many interpretations that
we humans have managed.