A.D.I.G.W.

This is the kind of subject I’d usually post on Sunday (for Spirituality) but it seemed like the perfect topic for the day after the world didn’t end which, if you are reading this, is the case.  What’s ADIGW?  When I write a gratitude list, there are several items that I abbreviate.  ADIGW is one of them … Another Day in God’s World.   If you read yesterday’s post, you know that I expressed certainty that the world would still be here today, in spite of the Mayan calendar.  That might sound a bit glib … even arrogant.  But what I’m saying today is that I don’t take another day in my life for granted.  I suppose valuing every moment should be a given based upon the events of the past week.

Gevurah

When someone wants to challenge another’s belief in a Higher Power, they are likely to ask, How can you believe in God when there is so much evil in the world?  Would a beneficent God allow children to die of cancer or millions to die in the concentration camps of the Third Reich?  These are difficult questions that perhaps can’t be answered without being God, which is not a very useful response to someone uninclined to believe in God in the first place.  But for people who choose to believe, the Kabbalah, the mystical school of Jewish thought, provides the notion that if God did not exercise restraint … that is, if God only acted out of kindness … free-willed beings like ourselves could not exist.  It isn’t a notion that’s going to silence any evangelical atheists but I think it’s helpful to those in search of metaphors for how God works … or doesn’t work … in the world.

Finding Pieces

courtesy livingforgod.net

After rejecting the God of my childhood at eighteen, I spent (approximately) the next forty years searching for a notion of God that both my Rational Self and Spiritual Self could live with.   I know many people who seem to be able to compartmentalize their lives, saying, This is rational and belongs to my Rational Side … this, on the other hand, is spiritual, so I’ll listen to my Spiritual Self.  That perhaps sounds critical but it’s not meant to be.   I’ve resented such people at times in part because I envied their ability to find God in their lives without endless searching but I admire their certainty.  I don’t seem to be built that way and, hence, I’ve ended up (at least so far) spiritual but not religious.  Being comfortable with that has been a long road and it still has its bumps … for example, when I contemplate mortality.  It would be nice to believe in a home for eternity if only I did such and such instead of having just a notion of an eternal soul.   The Twelve Steps talk about a God of our understanding but understanding God is often an obstacle to me because my understanding is rooted in my Rational Self.  Perhaps I have a God of my not-understanding.

Bat Kol

Back on July 10, I was on my way back to Connecticut for my Dad’s funeral and reading  The Way, Michael Berg’s book on the spiritual principles of the Kabbalah, subtitled Using the Wisdom of the Kabbalah for Spiritual Transformation and Fulfillment, en route.  Even though I was raised catholic, my wife and I raised our children Jewish (not that they stayed that way) and I became very comfortable with Judaism. Given my tendency toward mysticism, the Kabbalah was a short walk from traditional Judaism.  The Way is the fourth book I’ve read on the Kabbalah and, as I mentioned in Flying … Again, the most heavy-handed in terms of pushing its particular view. Still, given the nature of the trip and my past experience of finding just the bit of wisdom I need in a book that seems appear my life, I kept reading … and was rewarded.