Tag: There’s a God in My Soup

Religious experience, or at least the experience of religion.

365 Names (sort of): The Fragility

“THIS IS WHY SOME PEOPLE drink,” I told my friend, provoking him into loud laughter.

We were talking about THE FRAGILITY: that immediate realization of the tenuousness of life, and its property of drastically changing in a cold heartbeat through death, incapacitation or other sad surprise. (So immediate is this experience that I’m listing it as one of the [unofficial] 365 Names of G?d.)

You’ve heard it before: “Live each day as if it were your last.” “Nothing is forever.” “It all goes by like that.” These phrases have become cliches, because they’re all true. What can we do about it? Continue reading “365 Names (sort of): The Fragility”

Open Invitation

THERE MAY BE NO QUICKER way to evoke reverent awe than by looking through a telescope at the night’s rich bounty.

I was 13 when I first trained a small refractor, a gift from my parents, on the planet Saturn. My jaw literally dropped when I saw that yellow disk floating in a golden ring. Just like the photos, I thought, only it’s REAL!

It is that reality, of actually seeing the moon and planets, which brings with it those tingling fingers of Wow running through our brains. It’s not necessarily a “religious” experience. But focusing on the vasty star-deep can be deeply spiritual. It’s also addictive and contagious. Continue reading “Open Invitation”

Larry Niven Calls This “The Funniest Prayer in Literature”

TUCKED INTO MY INDUSTRIAL-STRENGTH siddur (prayerbook) is the following supplication. It’s there to keep me riding the trail of Faith without falling into the trap of thinking I know everything — or, really, anything — about that-which-some-people-call-God. Ladies, gentlemen, friends, Romans, countryfolk, I give you … The Agnostic’s Prayer, from Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness (© 1969):

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Continue reading “Larry Niven Calls This “The Funniest Prayer in Literature””

365 Names: “The Presence”

THE PRESENCE is a more experiential-than-otherwise Divine descriptor. It attempts to portray the ineffable (nameless/wordless) quality of that-which-some-people-call-God, or what Freud’s friend Romain Rolland termed the “oceanic feeling” of being One with the Universe. It has the advantage of being both non-dogmatic and non-dual; there’s nothing to argue about, only something to feel or, if you prefer, to see. That’s certainly bad news for people who like to write about such things, but much easier on the rest of us who don’t (or don’t choose to) understand the reference. Right? Continue reading “365 Names: “The Presence””

Road Wisdom

“WHEN YOU’RE ON THE ROAD and somebody offers you something, take it.”

This piece of learning was gifted me by a temporary chauffeur during my 1985 hitchhiking trip (detailed elseblog) who, somewhere on EB I-80 between Placerville and Stateline, asked me if I wanted a beer — my favorite brand, in fact. I demurred, until he convinced me otherwise with the above epigram.

Since then I have done a poor job with keeping up my side of the bargain. I am a pretty fierce let-me-do-it-myself-er. But I’m trying to do better.

It’s important to let people help you. It makes them feel good. It makes them feel needed and useful. And isn’t that the best gift we can give each other?

365 Names: G?d

G?D IS MY GO-TO Name for the that-which-some-people-call-God concept. It’s adapted from the traditionalist Jewish spelling “G-d,” with a twist: the “?” denotes Its Greatly Unknowable aspect. There is no way I (or anyone) could reasonably explain or even talk about “God” — Which is, by definition, indefinable — and spelling this most basic Name with a question-mark keeps me mindful of that important fact. Affected? Perhaps. Pretentious? Not at all. Catchy? I hope so. Continue reading “365 Names: G?d”

365 Names of God: “King Alpha”

KING ALPHA From the 1970 song “Rivers of Babylon” by The Melodians comes this Rastafarian take on Psalms 19 and 137 (but mostly 137). Although the group may intend King Alpha to refer to the Ethiopian king and Rasta hero Haile Selassie, I respectfully suggest that this Name also makes a good in-general moniker for G?d: “Alpha” is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, reflecting the “G?d is One” theme of the Shema; “King” can be a metaphor for the Sovereign Constructor or (Constructing Principle) of the Universe. Put ’em both together and they spell t-h-e-o-l-o-g-y. Continue reading “365 Names of God: “King Alpha””

365 Names of God: “Supreme Being”

SUPREME BEING WHENEVER I HEAR this Name, I think of the part played by Sir Ralph Richardson in the 1981 Terry Gilliam film Time Bandits: a dapper, suit-wearing, businesslike, no-nonsense-on-my-watch sort of G?d. The Name may also refer to the object of the “oceanic feeling” popularized by Sigmund Freud — that aspect of “being” which is most “supreme.” And it might also denote the Dweller at the Summit of the Universe (which, in an apparently spherical universe like our own, would be the place with the best view thereof). Two out of these three may or may not be the same thing. Beware of imitations.

Continue reading “365 Names of God: “Supreme Being””

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