The God Beyond
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I want to start out with two stories.
The first—ancient—is about Abraham, the father of faith for Christians, Muslims and Jews. In biblical accounts it’s difficult to discern what Abraham actually believed. He doesn’t possess a certainty of faith. He is regularly confused and asks many questions, often without receiving very satisfying answers. But this patriarch of the three great western traditions did indeed possess at least one marvelous religious experience.
He’s sitting outside his tent on a hot day. Sweat drips from his temples. The tribe is resting, trying not to stir during the baking slowness of the day. He barely moves; his wrist clicks back and forth, as a large feather fan swishes hot air across his face. And there on the horizon appear three strangers. In ancient times, as is often true today, the stranger was not always the easiest person to invite in. As violent as our own culture is, Abraham’s day was worse. Strangers often represented a threat rather than an opportunity.
But what does Abraham do? He pulls himself up off the blistering ground, brushes sand from his robes and walks toward them. He offers a greeting, inquires as to their well-being. Instead of being on guard, anticipating a potential threat, he sets out the best he can offer. He spreads extravagant dining cloths, prepares and serves the guests an elaborate, plentiful meal. He offers comfort and solace. They converse and swap stories. And it happens quite slyly, without fanfare or oracle, that one of these strangers is Abraham’s God.
And so it is that Abraham’s act of practical compassion leads to an encounter with the divine. It was in Abraham’s lived experience—in the choice to transcend a focus on his own needs—that the divine was ushered in.
The second story is a modern one.
A couple of years ago my friend, Marcy, and her boyfriend, Brian, were having dinner at a Chinese restaurant. As they enjoyed a plate of lo mien, engrossed in conversation, a hand reached down and scooped up their plate of noodles. A voice, quick and agitated, mumbled “Sorry!” and a thin, poorly dressed woman left the restaurant with their plate of lo mien.
In astonishment, they watched her walk down the street, holding the ceramic plate with the flat of her hand, stuffing noodles in her mouth so rapidly that they slapped sharply against her face. The owner realized what had happened and darted out the front door, chasing after the noodle thief. He stood firmly in front of her, blocking her way and grabbing a side of the plate. A struggle ensued, and noodles slid uneasily from one side to the other, slopping over the edge. He surged forward and pulled with a heroic strong-arm attempt to retrieve his plate. The woman’s fingers slid from the plate. Noodles flew, then flopped pathetically on the sidewalk.
Left empty-handed, with soggy, contaminated noodles at her feet, the woman stood with arms dejectedly at her side. The owner walked victoriously back to the restaurant with the soiled plate in hand. My friends were given a new heaping plate of lo mien, although they had already consumed half of the stolen plate. A stream of apology in Chinese came from the proprietor. Unable to eat anymore, they asked to have the noodles wrapped up and set off to see their movie.
A block later they came upon the lo mien thief. The woman was hyper-charged. She simultaneously cried, convulsed and shouted at a man, who rapidly retreated from her side. My friend, unsure about what to do, listened to her boyfriend’s plea to just walk away. But she didn’t. Instead, she walked over to the thief and said, “Ah, we haven’t formally met, but about ten minutes ago, you were interested in our noodles. They gave us some new ones. Are you still hungry?” The woman nodded and extended her bony arms. She took the Styrofoam container in her hands, and bowed ever so slightly.
Marcy told me this story as an atheist, with an awareness that something she described as moving and real had happened in the exchange. She did not use traditional theological language. Yet once again, her act of practical compassion led to a holy encounter. It was in Marcy’s lived experience—in her transcending a focus on her own needs—that the holy was ushered in.
Two stories, two different theologies. One the experience of a theist —Abraham; the other the experience of an atheist—Marcy. But what I find interesting is, how separate are they? If you asked them each about their belief in god, they would be far apart in their definitions or lack thereof. But if you ask, How do your beliefs make a difference in your life? they would both point to a transcending of self.
All of which leaves me with a number of questions. Is belief in God the key to a spiritual experience, or a description of it? Might theists and atheists be talking about much the same thing? And which is the more important religious question: What do you believe about a supreme being? or What state of being do you seek to embody?
Indeed, interestingly enough, what religions have commonly used as a litmus test for experiencing the holy, whether non-theist or theist, is this understanding that when we transcend ourselves, when we are engaged in experiences that contribute to something larger than ourselves, then the divine is present, whether or not we call it divine.
Karen Armstrong writes, in “The God of All Faiths”:
All the major traditions that I have studied teach that one of the essential prerequisites for true religious experience is that we abandon the egotism and selfishness that hold us back from the divine. They all teach in one way or another that we are most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away. It is ego that diminishes us, limits our vision and is utterly incompatible with the sacred. But it is very hard to rid ourselves of egotism. Much of what passes for religion is in fact an endorsement of the selfishness that we are supposed to transcend in the ecstasy of faith. People want their prayers answered; they want to get to heaven. They go to church, synagogue or mosque not to cultivate self-abandonment but to affirm their identities. She further articulates that all the world’s religions, whether non-theist or theist, insist that the single test of any theology or spiritual practice is whether it offers a practical application of compassion. This alone is the test. You pass if your theology, if your vision of the divine, makes you kind, patient, selfless. You fail if your theology, if your image of that which is holy, makes you bigoted, self-righteous, unkind or dismissive of others.
One great example of this is a story about Rabbi Hillel, an older contemporary of Jesus. It is said that a pagan told Hillel, that he would convert to Judaism if the rabbi could sum up the whole of the Jewish teaching while standing on one leg. So Hillel stood on one leg and said:
Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you. That is the torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn it!
Armstrong reminds us that it’s important to note that God wasn’t mentioned. Nor was Mount Sinai, the laws of kashrut, or other values inseparable from mainstream Judaism. Instead, he summed up the guts of Judaism by pointing to the nature of the experiences we engage in.
So here it is. I’m putting it out there. We need to get over ourselves. We have spent far too much time arguing over whether or not it matters that we use God language or we don’t.
Atheists need to grant that ideas of divinity aren’t silly, and theists need to grant that the holy is accessible to atheists. Both sides could benefit from agreeing that the question of religion is not how we speak of God, but how we transcend ourselves. Are we giving ourselves away, are we serving the greater good, are we giving compassion, offering kindness, withholding judgment?
In my office sits a statue of Quan Yin, a representation of the Buddhist image of compassion. For months now, when my daughter Neva walks into my office, she stops, looks at the religious artifacts, goes to the coffee table, takes a tissue from the box, climbs onto the chair next to Quan Yin and wipes the statue’s nose, and then wipes her own.
Her first instinct is not to ask What is this? or Who is it? or even What does it mean? Her first instinct is to reach out, as if born with an intuition that the sacred question is not What do I believe? but rather Who is in need?
I think all of us are born with this instinct. And my hope in watching her is that the future will hold a world united in the effort to reach out to one another rather than one divided into tribes based on beliefs.
May we, my friends, help to carry this intuitive question forward, so that the generations that follow us are helping address the needs of the world as they live out their religious calling, no matter what they believe.
- Gerda’s Raspberry - December 1, 2013
- Laughing into New Life (Excerpt) - March 1, 2013
- The God Beyond - June 1, 2012
