“A beautiful life does not just happen. It is built daily by prayer, humility, sacrifice and love. May that beautiful life be yours always.”
~ Unknown
The sunrise held many different appearances this morning, echoing the thoughts in my meditation. I was thinking hard about the image of “god” ….
I wish to thank you all very much for your kind words yesterday, and a beautiful note I received from a friend. She finds herself lately uttering these words over and over….”how can you NOT believe in God?” She finds her faith is renewed, strengthened, confirmed in the blossoms of her August Beauty gardenia bush. And little passing moments in family life.
My friend and I aren’t looking for faith in something grandiose. She finds it in a blossom, I find it in a V in the clouds, and another friend in a blue bird outside her window. But somewhere along the line, I was lead to believe that God manifested through miracles, which are big deals. So I went about searching for miracles as proof, blinding myself. Where did this notion of God as sort of a Wizard of Oz come from? That’s what I contemplated this morning ….
Google “God as ….” and a number of interesting topics come up. The wiki on “Great Architect of the Universe” and “Conceptions of God” are interesting, while lengthy reads. In summary, the various philosophies seem to differ on whether or not us humans can have a “personal relationship” with a deity who is viewed as the creator of the universe.
In the end, I was drawn to an explanation given by Christopher Haffner’s, in his book “Workman Unashamed”. Haffner writes:
“Now imagine me standing in (freemason) lodge with my head bowed in prayer between Brother Mohammed Bokhary and Brother Arjun Melwani. To neither of them is the Great Architect of the Universe perceived as the Holy Trinity. To Brother Bokhary He has been revealed as Allah; to Brother Melwani He is probably perceived as Vishnu. Since I believe that there is only one God, I am confronted with three possibilities:
They are praying to the devil, whilst I am praying to God;
They are praying to nothing, as their Gods do not exist;
They are praying to the same God as I, yet their understanding of His nature is partly incomplete (as indeed is mine — 1 Cor 13:12)
It is without hesitation that I accept the third possibility …”
I wish you a fabulous weekend. And I hope that your faith is restored, through little magnificent moments. Simple contemplation … This is where the grandiose miracle is found …
