God is

Graham Torr considers the importance of unity, love and truth

It has taken me much of my adult life to shake free from the cartoon image, fixed in childhood, associated with the three-letter word in the title above. For many years I avoided using it. I now feel I have begun to reclaim it. And a sufficient number of spiritual jigsaw pieces have come together for me to tell a story about it.

I start by recognising my own complete insignificance. I am a speck. I am insignificant relative to both the size of the known universe and its timescale. I could despair, but I have a saving grace – I am connected. There are my family, my friends, my other fellow humans, and the natural world and all that lies beyond our planet. I am part of a unity of creation, not a seven-day project but the extraordinary, continuously recreating web of life.

I am drawn to the imagery of ‘Indra’s net’. I picture it extending to infinity in all directions. I, and all to which I am connected, appear at the nodes of the net as pearls, each pearl reflecting the others.

I consider these pearls – each and every element of creation to which I am connected – and in this the natural world features strongly. Much of it is so commonplace and so mundane. But consider the bark of a tree. Not any tree or any bark, but the tree you pass every day, that particular patch of bark so easily visible. It is unique in its form, texture, colours, in the specific life forms visible and invisible. In that uniqueness there is beauty, and that uniqueness and beauty conjure love.

But all is not sweet, for there is truth as well. What is the truth of my relationship to all to which I am connected? What is the truth when my prejudices, selfishness, laziness and pride are set alongside the bark, the sea-worn rock, the view from the mountain and the starlit sky? This isn’t to condemn me, but it is to challenge me.

These three – unity (connectedness), love (mediated by uniqueness and beauty) and truth (of all that is, and most especially, of me) – are, I thought, channels through which I start to comprehend the word I have for so long avoided.

Two other pieces vie to fit the jigsaw. I treasure the concept of the Inner Light to be found in all humankind and I’m troubled by the evil acts we humans commit. Light for me is the most powerful visual metaphor for the word I struggle with and I embrace the belief that this Light blazed brightly in the historic figure of Jesus. Whilst evil is seen by many as having substance as the opposite of good, for me it is a negative, an absence, a void that sucks all around it to destruction. The pearl is fractured and disconnected and its actions flow from the suffering of its insignificance. Our task is to heal it and bring it back into unity.

And more: worship and prayer. Worship is the process by which, with my Friends, I reflect on, strengthen and renew my connections. It cradles me when I am troubled and reorients me when I am lost. But as for prayer… for most of my life the only prayer that felt valid was thanksgiving. Now I take prayer and worship to be indivisible. Prayer is the soundtrack of my connection, and it still includes thanksgiving.

That is where I currently stand. It’s my best solution to the jigsaw puzzle so far, though some of the pieces are a tight fit and one or two more still rattle in my pocket. It sees me from one week to the next, but uncertainty remains. And uncertainty and doubt are vital – they’re what keep me on my spiritual toes.

I return to the three: unity, love and truth. I return to them time and again, and I know that what I seek lies beyond words and images and that I can stretch no further.

Unity, love and truth. Unity, love and truth. Unity, love and truth. Are.

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Comments

A wonderful and thoughtful article of what God and the Holy Spirit is; Unity, love and truth, and I would add peace.

By raymond hudson on 19th January 2018 - 11:44

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