Is God everywhere?
Jill Allum has been prompted to ask by the words of Rudolf Otto
Why do you suddenly get hit between the eyes? My favourite book is Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy, written in German in 1917 and translated in 1923. Here is true mysticism. Rudolf Otto coins the word ‘numinous’ from the Latin ‘numen’ – to mean that ‘awe-ful’ shudder moment when we know we are close to the ‘holy’.
At the end of the book there are twelve appendices. Number eight is called ‘Silent Worship’. It is all about Quaker worship. Rudolph Otto writes: ‘It is the most spiritual form of divine service which has ever been practised and contains an element which no form of worship ought to be without. We must learn it once again from the Quakers.’
‘The real presence of the transcendent and holy in its very nature in adoration and fellowship… no form of devotion which does not offer or achieve this mystery for the worshipper… can give lasting contentment.’ High praise indeed!
Then come the questions: ‘Has it any meaning to ask for “the presence of the divine”? Is not God “omnipresent” and “really present” always and everywhere?’ He also asks: ‘Is God like a natural force pervading space? Scripture knows nothing of it… it knows only the God who is where He wills to be and is not where He wills not to be.’ So, where is God? Is he/she everywhere?
My thirteen-year-old granddaughter, Millie, is now asking questions: ‘Do Quakers believe in God?’ She comes from an agnostic family and I want to share how God is for me.
Is laughter a good analogy for God? Laughter comes out of the blue and bubbles up spontaneously inside us – like God? It usually needs two or more people. You feel a bit strange laughing on your own! Laughter usually means happiness, an ‘at-one-ment’ with someone. It gives a feeling of lightness and hope. It is part of a relationship – like God?
Shall I tell Millie that God is like the best friend you could imagine? But no, he is too evasive for that. He cannot be manipulated. ‘He is where He wills to be and is not where He wills not to be.’ He is in the moments when everything seems ‘willed’, synchronistic, coincidence filled, and has a feeling of utter rightness.
Jesus said: ‘I and the Father are one.’ You would not call ‘thin air’ or ‘ether’ your Father, would you? Ben Pink Dandelion, in his small book Celebrating the Quaker Way, calls God that ‘grace-filled sense of being watched over, guarded and guided’.
When Moses asks: ‘Who are you?’ – God calls himself ‘I AM’. This is the most exciting name I know for God. In my New Testament Greek group last week we were studying John, chapter 6. Jesus, walking on water, says to his frightened disciples: ‘I AM, do not be afraid’. A shudder was going down my spine.
‘I AM’ sounds real, nothing like an all-pervading ether. Someone I can relate to.
