30Stories: As your spirituality expands, does God stay personal?

This 30 Stories in 30 Days query comes from Bethany Basset, mom, writer and American ex-pat in Italy. Bethany and I met online, and then IRL when I boldly (rudely?) invited myself to her house as a part of my 40th birthday celebration. We rendezvoused for a Paolo Nutini concert in Rome, and then spent a few days with her adorable family in another part of Italy. If you’re at all intrigued by ex-pat living, Italy, or other European adventures, you really MUST head over to Coffee-Stained Clarity and read all about Bethany’s fascinating life.

Today Bethany asks:

Q: As your spiritual horizons expand and you move into uncharted religious territory, how do you keep your connection with God personal?

In a lot of ways my connection with God is far less personal. The longer I live outside of institutionalized religion, the less God feels like someone I must constantly talk to and cajole. More and more often God is less personalized to me and more ambiguous – like a Force or Energy. I still feel and believe that there is something beyond myself—beyond this mortal coil. But I’m less convinced that that Something is an anthropomorphic be-ing who is invested I my every step or misstep. I feel more like my spiritual work is to align myself with a positive creative Force, the Source of creation. (Which, actually, is a very Genesis type of thing, as the first thing we know about God is that “In the beginning, God created…)

This shift from a personalized, highly-involved God to something wider and less humanoid can be unsettling for a lot of people. I often get questions around the idea of: “Well, if God is not personally in charge or me or personally involved with my life, what does that mean!??!” It’s a big shift, and not everyone makes it, or even needs to make it. The important thing is that you follow your gut and try-out different constructs around who God is and how God interacts with the world. Keep in mind that even within your own religious institution there has been any number of ways to understand this throughout history and across denominations. Ask an Orthodox Jew and a Reformed Jew how they interact with The Divine and you will get two very different answers. Ask a Christian Mystic and a Christian Apologetic the same question and there will be a great deal of variation in their answers. It is a normal part of spiritual development to test out different ways of understanding and relating to The Divine.

For myself there was a period during my transition from conservative evangelicalism to post-modern interfaith practice where I did feel quite detached from God as I knew him/her. It was a nerve wracking period. One thing that helped me get through was that friend often asked me “Can you go back?” And my answer was always intuitively and powerfully, “No.” That strong reaction propelled me into new exploration and discovery.

Once I got some distance from my former ways of interacting with God, and gave myself permission to test out different practices and constructs, things improved. I now feel more strongly connected and guided by God/The Universe/The Divine. Jesus has shifted from Cosmic Confidant to Wise Teacher. God has become more a Universal guiding energy, rather than the sometimes grumpy Grandfather-in-the-Sky. And I now recognize the Holy Spirit as The Muse.  Renaming the Spirit has allowed me to tap more strongly into the Feminine Divine – an aspect of God which has been suppressed in the church by centuries of patriarchal power-plays. Freed from the bounds of patriarchal dictums about how God communicates and what God communicates, I am more likely to hear The Divine through my intuition, through the serendipitous moments of my day, and in the voice and hearts of others whom I know to be attentive to holy moments.

What about you? Do you have a “personal” relationship with God? What does that look like for you? Has your understanding about God shifted over the years? Has that made God more or less relational and interactive to you? We’d love to know, “cuz there ain’t no place to go but together.”

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Do you need support in your evolving spiritual journey? We’d like to invite you to join our online soulcare community, Flock. We are dedicated to “finding a spirituality that fits.” You can read posts and watch Flock videos here, or click here for more information. Join us before the end of the year and you’ll have our introductory price for-evah. Let us know if we can help.

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ONE PLACE LEFT to ask a question for 30 Stories in 30Days!  Email me your question along with the link to your blog, and I’ll book you a date on my 30Stories whirlwind. (Ooooo…I do so love getting behind the mic to answer your questions!)

Stories : 30Days – The Collection

Day 1:  What is the intersect between work and play and how can I find it? 
Day 2:  How has your spirituality shaped your sexuality?
Day 3: IRL and Online Friendships: same? different? balanced.
Day 4: How can I connect with my neighborhood?
Day 5: What do I do if my partner and I have different faiths?
Day 6: What are you doing to make a difference in this world?
Day 7: What is your highest high and what can you learn from it?
Day 8: What role has massage played in your life?
Day 9: How can I make administrative tasks a creative/spiritual practice?
Day 10: What has it meant to you to have your birthday so near Halloween?
Day 11: How can I manage resistance around my art?
Day 12: I want to establish some kind of spiritual practice. Where do I start?
Day 13: What is your primary spiritual practice?
Day 14: Do you prefer living in Europe or in the U.S.?
Day 15: How does nature affect your spirituality, and why do you say you have a soft spot for Pagans?

Tagged as: 30Stories 30Days, Train with Magpie Girl