The G Word

I got together with an old friend from high school last night. I hadn't seen her since high school actually. We had a great chat, caught up, exchanged tidbits of gossip about mutual acquaintances, etc... This entry has nothing to do with this - only that she said something that made me laugh and inspired today's random thought.

We were talking about babies (I know, shocker, women in their late 20s talking about babies). Her take on infertility was that if "god doesn't want you to have them" you probably shouldn't. Now, there's a loaded statement to be sure. But this entry has nothing to do with that either. She prefaced that statement with "Not that I believe in God. Or anything. But if god doesn't..." THAT is what interested me.

I realized what an interesting and tricky conundrum it was. To decidedly NOT believe in something, but then give it power like that.

Anyway, that's not what this entry is about either. "Get to the point, lady!" Alright, alright.

I had a little interesting moment during this conversation when I realized just how comfy I had become with the G-word. GOD. I hadn't even flinched like I used to. And oh, I used to flinch.

It was a big strange word when I was growing up. It was what other kids at school went to church to learn about. I didn't have a religious upbringing and only really knew about god because my parents sent me to a Mennonite camp when I was 6 (it was a good camp) and because when I slept over at friends' houses on Saturday night I had to go to church with them Sunday morning.

When I got a little older I decided I didn't believe in God. God was like Santa Claus. A really good story to tell the kids, but it was something you grow out of, like the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. No one I knew really believed in god. At best I'd get a "dunno" when I asked my friends if God was real. Clearly there was no evidence. Clearly it was a fiction.

A little older still, in my teens I started taste-testing other religions.

My best friend in grade 10 had been raised Wiccan. Her mother was a very sweet witch who told me my name was a very powerful name. Goddess of the Moon. The hunter. She fed me dried roots whenever something ailed me. My friend and I did a love spell at midnight under a full moon. Teenage girls should never do love spells. It went horribly horribly wrong.

I befriended a Hindu girl during summer school. Her mother made the most fantastic naan bread. Her father invited me into his prayer room (as long as I wasn't on my period), where a large elephantine statue smiled at me. I offered it candy. It's name was Ganesh.

And when another close friend was told by her father she was to either convert to Islam or risk being cut off from her siblings, she and I read the Koran together, trying to make sense of some of the particularly difficult passages (like the one I believe was instructing a man to beat his wife until she submits to his will).

I went to Israel when I was 15 on a Jewish summer school Archeology course. I dug in the desert sun for four hours a day - on a site called Bethsaida. An old fishing village mentioned in the bible. We stayed in a kibbutz on the North shore of the Sea of Galilee. I swam there daily. One day I had been out swimming with a friend when, quite a ways out from shore, I stumbled upon a sandbank and stood on it. My feet were only inches in the water... And I walked, on water. In the Sea of Galilee. Or so it would have seemed to someone on the shore. Someone unaware of the sandbank.

I started asking questions about the possibility of Jesus walking on sandbanks. My Jewish teacher promptly asked me to stop.

Throughout all of it, I think my relationship with God remained one of curiosity. Was I just colour blind when it came to God? What had managed to convince everyone else? If there was a God, what kind of God was it? Was it the Roman picture of God - white beard, toga, staff. Was it Elephant-Headed and Blue? Was it a he or a she...?

My husband was raised Catholic. Catholic school, catholic church, the whole works and yet even he isn't sure he believes any of it (but I note that he faithfully recites the lines and goes through the motions when he's in a Catholic church).

But none of it fit, you know? Parts of parts did. Little tidbits rang true here and there, but on the whole there wasn't a single religion I really felt had 'nailed' it.

Eventually I decided it was best and easiest to stop arguing - and start substituting. You say "God", I hear "Universal Intelligent Energy" (or something like that).

And the more I read about breakthroughs in modern science, quantum physics and the strange capabilities of subatomic particles, the more I'm starting to think of God as the magical mini bits that we all made of - the bits of energy that connect us all.

Could I be so bold as to say WE are God, or that we are made OF God? Maybe after a few drinks, in the company of friends, but I'm certainly not bold enough to do it here.

Or maybe Ron L. had it right and we're all just trapped little aliens who should cough up half a million dollars to find ourselves again... What do I know?