Interdependence.
January 22, 2007
It is so commonly asserted, and it is true that God is love, but that sounds so empty because there are many ways that human beings characterize love. Humans can characterize love as always positive, always patient, but there are many who believe strongly that God can be vengeful, that God punishes—punishes through pain, punishes through other difficulties that you might characterize as being negative. There are those who believe that God can be jealous, jealous of those who presume to limit God through their own sense of presence, and that God out of jealousy then punishes. There are those who believe that God is nature, that God exists in each flower and bird, and that by respecting nature, one is giving God what God deserves. Saying therefore, that God is love can have many meanings for many individuals, and yet no meaning is fully correct or fully incorrect.
Human beings have always tried to surround God with an explanation that is seen as being human. For some, such explanations of God are appropriate. For others, they may seek a different perspective. For some individuals, believing that God is vengeful encourages lives that are seen by others as giving and sacrificing, as being supportive, as being nonjudgmental. The perception of God is entirely dependent upon the perspective of the person holding that perception.
God is more than each of those perspectives, and for that reason, the one common denominator, if you will, is to recognize that God Is, and because God Is, You Are. Because You Are, Others Are. Because Others Are, All That You See Is. Every particle belongs to the total creation. Each Particle Is. The fact that Everything Is, everything exists, means that you are all related. You are related to all human beings. You are related to all forms of energy, all part of that grand creation, and because You All Are, everyone, everything, is equal. There is no species on earth that is more important than another. There is only interdependence.
