From Your Minister
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Are you there, God? It’s me, Meg.
Yes, and if you don’t mind, I’ll keep calling you Margaret. It confuses me when you young people are always taking nicknames. It’s hard enough learning one name for each of you!
Actually, I’m not that kid in Judy Blume’s teen novel, Are You There, God? It’s me, Margaret. My name never was Margaret. I’m Meg, the senior minister at the Church of the Larger Fellowship. I thought if we hung out for a while I could name drop in our newsletter!
Meg, huh? Sounds like a nickname to me.
Well, you’re a great one to talk. Isn’t “God” a nickname? I mean, YAHWEH is the initials of “I Am What I Am.” Talk about the ultimate confusing name!
Boy, I’ll say. Folks confuse me all the time! They confuse me with a judge. They confuse me with either or both of their parents. They’re always confusing me with Santa Claus. And what makes me saddest of all is when they confuse me with The Biggest Bully.
Yeah, I think I’ve met some of those people. And maybe I’ve confused your name a few times myself. So will you help me to get it right?
I Am What I Am.
Well, Descartes said, “I think therefore I am.” Does that mean you are thought?
Oh, you think too much. Don’t blame that on me! Hey, that reminds me of a good joke that Steven Colbert told: God is love. Love is blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore God is Stevie Wonder. Pretty good, huh?
Well, some of Stevie Wonder’s music would make me believe that. You watch the Colbert show, huh? What else do you like to watch?
It’s all a big show to me! Onstage, offstage, behind the stage… I watch it all.
You mean like, you see me when I’m sleeping? You know when I’m awake? You know when I’ve been good or bad so be good, for goodness sake?
No, no, that’s Santa Claus. I told you sometimes folks mix us up. Maybe that’s why they keep thinking I’m an old man with a beard!
Well, the old-man-with-a-beard thing is bigger than Santa. It’s from the stories in the Hebrew Bible, I think. And then Michelangelo did those gorgeous paintings and we all kind of imprinted on them.
Back in the day, people mostly listened to old men with beards. So that was how people visualized ultimate authority. These days, I’d be more likely to appear as a cellular network or something. That’s where people put all of their respect now!
What? Wait a minute! You’re a cellular network? You mean 3G and 4G—the G stands for God?
Nah. I told you, you think too much—of course it doesn’t! But, listen to the language used to describe one network: “Living, breathing intelligence.” That kind of sounds like my name.
If you are saying that “living, breathing intelligence” sounds like your name, how come you keep telling me I think too much?
Don’t confuse thinking with intelligence. At least the way you use the words. Do plants think? Do stars? Do rocks?
Do they have intelligence?
Of course they do! Intelligence means understanding. When you’ve longed for complete understanding, haven’t you ever stared at a star, or walked among trees, or held a rock?
Sure.
So you may have been bumping into me about then. But humans can have understanding too. Mostly it doesn’t happen in your heads, though. It happens between you, when suddenly your bodies don’t hold you in separate containers, but you’re kind of merged with others. That’s what Jesus was trying to say when he said, “The kingdom of God is among you.” I am between you, in the love you show each other.
You mean, we create you by loving each other?
Well, we all co-create each other, right? I mean, where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?
Mystery, mystery. Life is a riddle and a mystery!
Now you’re showing a little more understanding. Your energy shifted there!
That’s because those are words from a song I love to sing with other people. It’s in the UU hymnal [#1003].
There you have it. Singing is a great way to touch into the energy between you and other people, to create a little more intelligence. Look, Margaret, I’ve gotta go. I hear the network is down in Washington DC again…
Thanks, God! And, um, you can call me Margaret. I guess the names don’t really matter as much as the understanding!
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