Most people haven’t really been watching or listening, have they? And why should they? The people they’ve been trafficking with probably haven’t prepared them for it. They’ve had no expectation that the One who calls us may be trying to get their attention: waving His arms at them in the press of daily relationships and responsibilities, flashing His light in the soft, smiling eyes that pause and pass by, speaking in the voices of those who love and care, whispering to the heart that sighs, stirring in their very soul. They have not heard Him calling from all creation, the cycles of birth and death, change and renewal, nudging them to the questions of what is passing, what transcends, and what endures.
If He wants us to see, we’ll see; if He wants us to hear, we’ll hear, or so it is written and often said. For He implores, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” and yet for many concedes, “...while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” Is that why, even when some people feel the stirring, hear that faint voice, see the light or feel the love, they turn with a heavy heart and move quietly away?
But maybe they just don’t want to see or hear. They can, but would rather tune it out or push past it. They haven’t the time or the will to entertain such a call to consuming relationship and pervasive change. Too much to give up; the cost too high. Besides, it’s a fool’s pastime in the eyes of the world. And, while some may not mind the idea of being counted a fool for God in the last reckoning of who we are, with whom we stand, and the direction we are going, they really don’t want to be seen as a fool in the world’s eyes. Not today. They choose to live accountably under worldly eyes and judgments today, and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. Isn't that about it?
Or maybe they just can’t believe they deserve it. They’d like to, after all, but why should God call to them? They’re not that special or worthy, or even that good much of the time. Perhaps in some private way they are a disappointment to themselves—and therefore feel they must be to God as well. But maybe they just don’t understand what He does and why. Maybe they’ve failed to grasp that it’s all been about preparing us, making us ready to move on, that God loves us in a way they can’t understand, and wants us to grow closer to Him. And so they deny themselves His invitation. Is that a possibility?
If many have responded at all—and maybe they have—it has been to religiously avoid authentic identity with any faith at all, or perhaps move to the other extreme and identify with one narrow religious perspective only. Is that because they suppose that if God relates authentically to people at all, it’s either outside the strikingly flawed workings of organized religion altogether, or solely through one singularly self-anointed, exclusive and unbending element of one or another faith perspective—whether identified with Christianity, Judaism or Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or any other Ism? Do they suppose that God operates solely from any of our restrictive, self-absorbed, man-made religious or nonreligious boxes?
They should know He doesn’t, don’t you think? Even under a brittle cultural or religious veneer, they should know that He may call to them from any of those places or from a different place altogether, that they may find Him anywhere. And they can answer His call and draw closer to Him in any of those places as well. But many may find that some faith structures or values, faith environments or communities, some faith leaders or teachers, are more compatible with their place or circumstances, their identity or culture—or just more compatible with what God is saying to them or doing with them right now. They should move toward them, go with them, if they will.
As for me, I am a Christian, one kind of Christian: a pilgrim with Christ and Mystery, a seeker after God. I have studied various faiths and spiritualities, sojourned in Eastern and Western faith communities, and they led me back to Jesus. I try to accept and nurture an abiding relationship with Him, one that points me toward more intimacy with God and experience of His Love, that informs me more of His nature and who He wants me to become. But not in a Christian box, I pray, but through Him free of those boxes, too. And there I often find assurance, direction, even peace, but always I find the challenges of renewed identity in God and His creation, changed as I am by His Spirit and His Love (and God is Spirit and Love).
But regardless of your faith perspective, here’s a question for you: If you would go with God, would you become that new person He calls you to be in Him? Can you imagine sitting as comfortably and caringly with those so often shunned by the community, even your faith community, as Jesus did (and as those closest to God have always done)? And here’s another question: can you imagine finding comfortable, shared community with any person who seeks respectful understanding of faith or relationship with God, whatever his religion or faith orientation might be, if any? How do you feel about that? Here’s what I think: we cannot learn more about what God is saying to each of us, we cannot grow in our experience of God, if we do not share community—ideas, experience, relationship—with all the people that God calls, talks to, and talks through. And be assured, God is all and in all.
You can encounter and learn about God in the Scriptures of my faith. But you can also encounter Him in many other God-inspired writings. They must be God-inspired because I encounter God there, too: in the reverenced writings of other faiths; in the prose of writers about faith; in the poetry of the intimates of God, whatever their tradition. And God speaks to me through the poetry of some who would claim no articulated faith for themselves at all, just an inspired art, an inspiring muse. So do not be misled. This is the world that God has made—all of it—and He speaks through it all as He speaks to it all.
But you may not encounter God in all the Christian camps and communities. Nor will you encounter Him in all the camps and communities of other religions. For some have reduced God and relationship with Him to their own idea or ideal, an intellectual and cultural exercise of shaping and rationalizing an uncontainable, creating and revealing God into something defined, contained and managed—as is their faith, faith life, and faith community. It is shaped by them and for them. It’s what happens when more trust is placed in the vision of man and the ways of the world than in the leadership of His Love, the way and power of His Spirit.
For some, those embraced ideas are so broad and open that each person is invited to create his own accommodating concept of God—bereft as they so often are of any reliable body of knowledge, any teaching or direction, to find authentic relationship and prayerful intimacy with Him. Others have so narrowly defined God and the dictates of community that they have wrenched all of the love, forgiveness and compassion out of Him—and out of the life of the community. What is left is brittle, exclusionary condescension and self-righteousness. What is left is judgment. And the spiritual Companion, the Spirit of God, is just not there.
But if you do come closer to God, you may also come to understand that He does not call us to unwelcome, off-putting proselytizing. Neither does He call us to sharp-edged political advocacy. He calls us first to relationship with Him, then to a humble, prayerful, serving life increasingly filled by God’s Spirit and Love, that He may be seen and heard through it, however flawed the vessel. Yes, we are to be ready to give the reasons why, share our story and His, but beyond that to leave God’s work to God.
Allow yourself to be found by God. Watch for Him; listen for Him. And wherever, whenever your are found by Him, go with Him. Just take yourself along. His Peace He promises and His Peace He gives, but it is not easy to receive. Find, be with the people who know God and can accompany and direct you. Be ready to change and grow, continually. Be ready for challenge as well as joy. Be ready to see the world, its people and problems, your life and friends, with new, more understanding eyes. Be ready for a faith that transcends, but a life that is renewed, involved and serving. With Him, we are always growing and seeing things new—especially who He is, and our loving relationship with Him and each other. As much as you can, hold onto those caring and generous sentiments, those grateful and forgiving feelings. Hold onto Love, and let it show.
First written: January - June 2005
© Gregory E. Hudson 2007
