What I Believe...

We live in a physical universe, a world that operates according to the laws of nature.  Some say this world came into being with a “big bang” or was formed by some unconscious force.  This may be so, but I believe (think) that in addition to this physical world and those natural forces, there is Spirit—a Spirit which gives meaning to all existence.  A Spirit who sustains and intervenes in our history and a Spirit upon which this physical world is dependent and subservient.  This world and its natural laws are dependable not alone because of some mechanical or unchangeable phenomena, but precisely because it is ordered by a purposeful and intelligent Spirit.  I believe God exists and I think God exists independent of my thinking (belief).  

God is a Person.  God is not an “It.”  God is an objective reality, not a creation of my fancies.  I can talk with God and I do.  I believe (think) God talks to me.  God cares for every person and knows and loves us individually.  My mind cannot grasp the sheer magnitude of this thought, nor can it take in the reality of it.   I believe (think) God loves all of us because I have felt God’s care and love for me—and I cannot conceive or imagine a God who cares for me, but does not care and love my neighbors, my friends, my enemies, and all persons everywhere.  This belief (thought) about God is not something I’ve contrived in my own little mind or soul, it is the belief  (thinking) expressed in the Hebrew/Christian and other sacred scriptures through the ages, and has been expressed over and over again in the  world’s greatest literature and thought.

When I say God is a Person, I mean God, in order to be our God, must have all the powers present in us as human persons.  God is conscious and aware, as we are.  God has purposes, as we do.  God knows, cares and loves as we do.  We are made in God’s image—there is “that of God” in each of us—but we are not God.

At Christmas, Christians say, “in the fullness of time” God broke into our world as a human being to show God’s very being to be like our own and to show God’s love for all people everywhere.  This story according to many has been called “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”  It is also the strangest story ever told!  Stranger still, is the notion, that God can break through in you and in me.  That is the strangest story I’ve ever heard!  I don't care to quibble or argue about my belief, I'm just sharing it for whatever it is worth.

What do we see when we look into the mirror?
I think my granddaughter, Eleni, sees something
 far more wondrous than  just her own image
 (if such is possible)
I believe so...I think so.