I’ve often wanted to go out into the world and randomly do a survey of 100 people where I ask each to describe God using different adjectives. That’s only because I feel it would be interesting to see just how different everyone views God.
Throughout my life, the adjectives that I would have used have changed over time. There were moments I despised even the concept of God because I blamed everything bad that happened in my life on God. So any adjectives I might have used during those times probably would have sounded very negative. I’ve also experienced times where I was having a very deep connection to God through long sessions of meditation and prayer. During those periods of my life, the words would have changed to ones of great praise. Lately, with all the work I’ve done in recovery through the 12 Steps, I’ve come to realize that God really can be summed up with just one word, “Love”.
I’m convinced all of us were brought here to love each other unconditionally and in doing so, we would draw closer back to God. Unfortunately, much of the opposite occurs daily on this planet and instead people are experiencing things such as guilt, shame, doubt, fear, remorse, anger, rage, and greed to name a bunch. One of the things that I have struggled with in many organized religions and people who are part of them is that much of the feelings I get from their energy are often those opposites of “love”. I’ve been around many of those people and they have quite often attempted to make me feel guilty or ashamed of who I am. They have tried to create doubt and fear within me as well. And I don’t believe that is God at all.
I don’t think that God guilts or shames people into doing anything. People do that to each other. I also don’t believe that God has a desire to make people doubt or be in fear. I’m inclined today to think we do that to each other as well. Regardless, people often judge each other and do the exact opposite of love when they fear what someone else is doing, especially when it’s unlike what they believe or feel or are accustomed to in their own lives. Churches for example often only use certain texts as their means of preaching and there is no room for any other teachings or lessons outside of it. Thus when someone is doing something different than what’s in those texts, the judgements begin and people move away from unconditional love.
While I can’t speak on God’s behalf, I do believe that God would be in agreement that we should all be focusing solely on loving each other more on this planet and nothing else. So that is the only adjective that I am sticking with today for my description of God. But if I was to expand beyond that word, the only ones I would ever use would be those that come out of acts of love such as kindness, generosity, and selflessness. As for any other words that aren’t synonymous with “love” today, I would tell everyone that they just aren’t God.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson