The Grand Mystery and the Adventure of the Search

“What you say about God—who God is, what God cares about, who God rewards, and who God punishes—says nothing about God and everything about you. If you believe in an unconditionally loving God, you probably value unconditional love. If you believe in a God who divides people into chosen and not chosen, believers and infidels, saved and damned, high cast or low caste, etc. you are likely someone who divides people into in–groups and out–groups with you and your group as the quintessential in-group. God may or may not exist, but your idea of God mirrors yourself and your values.” — Jim Palmer

I noticed this quote from Jim Palmer the other day (listed among a group of other “14 things the misguided religious establishment doesn’t want you to know”) and got really excited by this particular point. 

I can only “speak” for myself, but I’ve found this to be incredibly true in my life, both from my relationships with other religious people I have known and in my own faith as well. 

It would be easy to address the faults in others by referencing this quote, but that’s not my intention. Instead, I want to mention only my own piece of timber instead of the stick in anyone else’s eye. 

Rather than approaching my faith as the “get out of hell free” card or the “cosmic lawgiver” or even the “celestial lover” that have become the predominate metaphors for our relationships with the I Am (i.e., Christ/God/the Holy Spirit), my own metaphor has always been that of the great mystery, the ultimately unknown and unknowable. Now, I know the whole point of the faith is that Christ is knowable, but for my understanding of my chosen religion, no matter how well I may feel I know or know about, it is but a mere pittance and the tiniest fraction of what I could or should know. 

For me, my journey of faith is about the journey, the search for growing deeper and deeper into the great mystery. It hasn’t always been so. 

Read the full article: 

https://filthyragsanddirtycups.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-grand-mystery-and-adventure-of.html