As shadows spread across the floor and little breaths of air move the curtains, I begin to stir in my bed. I sense my connection to all the ones who ever were alive and striving to grapple with the many challenges of existing on this planet, our Earth.
Surely there are many things we have in common with any who lived before us. We awaken, eyes blinking as we rise toward consciousness like swimmers moving toward light and air. We remember what it is to be in a particular era, our own time.
Like the breath of a child, or the breath of any who have peered out at our world with curiosity, wonder, fear, we are here. No matter what the era, we ride the softness of this planet and wonder in every moment who we are and why we are here.
For me, the answers are linked to this entity, this Presence that has pursued us since our beginnings here upon this planet, our Earth. Sometimes I go so far as to suggest that this entity has stalked us since our beginnings here.
Often, I associate this entity with the frightening, awe-inspiring danger of one of the big jungle cats whose growl begins as a low rumble, a vibration deep in its throat that can oscillate through many registers up and up until it is a wild, savage scream that causes a thrill of instinctive panic deep into every fiber of the person or animal that is about to become its prey.
Might that be a moment of connection with God?
Certainly, many in the Bible, reaching for ways to grasp the awe and often frightening implications of Creator of the Universe, saw God as awe-inspiring in much the same way.
Lion of Judah, for example, is one of the biblical names for God in the Bible.
But yes, here we are, each of us, the human beings struggling up from the nests we have instinctively made. Our warm beds, where for a few hours each dusky evening we lie down and for a time let go, moving out within sleep like quiet ships on the ocean, feeling the rhythms of the water.
We are transfixed like insects caught in amber. Though we think of ourselves as here in an era where we have made breathtaking strides in the world, we nevertheless are linked with all the ones who have gone before. In a very real sense, we are connected in Time. How can we not be, if we are intimately connected to the creator of the Universe and thereby to Time itself?
I was raised from childhood in Appalachia, deeply ensconced within the heart of the Bible Belt, where so many have had direct interaction with this entity, this Presence.
And yet I am troubled that there is so much baggage associated with the three-letter word we use to refer to an entity that is so much more than what we have in our modern era understood.
In our modern pride, we have largely dismissed God. Or perhaps we have sought to confine God to certain carefully controlled areas.
We say for example, “Oh, that is Religion.”
We have sought to neutralize the Lion of Judah reference to the Creator of the Universe. We have lost the primal connection, the first-hand experience. And we have lost the sense of excitement and adventure related to aggressive search, research, and acknowledgement of the universal experience of this entity that has stalked us since our beginnings here.
Sometimes I think of it as shattering this glass bubble we have allowed to encase us, where our assumptions about God are concerned. What about you?
When you think of God, or listen to someone expound upon the necessity for obeying biblical strictures, don’t you feel uncomfortable?
Whether you do or not, most can agree that our skeptical modern culture has many distortions and misunderstandings associated with God.
Nevertheless, I do believe we are on the brink of an unprecedented spiritual renaissance which will hurl us kicking and screaming into a renewed sense of adventure as we reconsider who we are as humans in relation to this entity that has pursued us—even stalked us—since our beginnings here upon this planet, our Earth.
My blog, my books, my products invite individuals who are interested in rediscovering our lost biblical sense of adventure and riveting awe in this entity to join me. I hope many will bookmark this blog and follow me. I can offer you new ideas on who we are in relation to God as we reconsider who we are as humans and what we are becoming.