do you believe in God?

This morning I dreamt of returning home from a long journey. The boys and I were in one airport, Jay was in a different airport somewhere and had to take a longer flight. They boys had run off, and I had to stand in line to have our passports stamped. I was afraid I had lost them in the big basket I carried, it was filled with beach towels and books and stuff. I dug around and found them along with some old expired passports and the plane tickets. I was very relieved but still flustered. The attendant started asking me questions in Greek. I understood some of his questions, but not all of them. He asked me if I believed in God, expecting me to say no. Instead I shrugged and said “I think so.” Then I woke up.

I do believe in God but I still waffle at the question. I waffle because I don’t know what others mean by the question. I want to ask the meaning of the word ‘God’ before I answer the question. I don’t believe in a father God: the old man in white robes standing on the clouds and judging us. I don’t believe in an intelligence separate from us. I don’t believe in a creator, a designer, and a puller of strings or a finder of parking spaces. I don’t believe that God picks and chooses among us based on the conditions of our birth, the color of our skin, the way be believe, or the choices we make. God does not reward us for being Americans. The love that is God must encompass all regardless of the poor choices that we make or the conditions of our births.

I experience God and I know God. For me, the knowing is neither words nor images, it is a physical experience. God is literally a wave of warmth that washes through my body and lets me know I am never alone. I feel that wave of warmth in the intuitive knowing of the right thing to do when someone is in pain. I feel the warm wave of God in the curiosity of a child and the tenacity of weeds to grow in the smallest crack of a sidewalk. I experience God in the persistence of desire in a 25-year-old marriage. I experience God in the silence of the morning, the sound of the rain on the trees, and crackle of the squirrels when a crow lands in their midst. I experience God in this curious virtual network of the world-wide-web that we have created to more tangibly connect us. When I remember to look, I can experience God in the smallest of miracles that make this life possible and I can experience God in the awe and grandeur of life on this planet that is beyond my ability to comprehend.

And while it is harder to imagine, I believe that God must also exist in the fear and horror of Abu Ghraib, in the twisted mind of the drug addict that killed Precious Doe, in the absolute depths the human mind can be twisted to. I know that, for my sanity, I try hard to separate myself from the horror I participate in. But I am a participant in killing by default: it doesn’t happen at the skin of my hand but by the long reach of my government and my economic choices. I wear the horror in these cheap clothes sewn by virtual slaves in developing nations. I wear the horror in the diamond on my left hand. If I look deeply at this symbol of love, I can see the horror of the African diamond mines and the raping of the wealth of Africa and its people: exploitation justified by color of a people’s skin and a local culture that lacked the greed to resist the desire and exploitation of the white people. God must exist in this horror too, in the diamond on my hand and the mixed messages of life where awe and horror coexist.

Do you believe in God?