In His Image
a reconsideration of god
Imagination is humanity’s greatest inheritance.
Our species possesses the extraordinary ability to envision that which is not: a revelation explored by everyone from Yuval Noah Harari to Ricky Gervais. We amass under the notion of nation and the concept of corporation. We have unified and divided entire peoples based on the very idea of God.
But here’s where our collective imagination falls short. We have invented batteries and rollercoasters and operas and currencies and thousands of languages, but when faced with the Great Mystery, we reply that God is… us on steroids.
How disappointing! How droll! God is the uninspired product of our imaginative scope— or, as Hernan Diaz puts it more adroitly — “God is the most uninteresting answer to the most interesting questions.”
In this careening era of ego, evil, and extinction, we must reevaluate our characterization of God.*
*In this case, the literal-minded Western Judeo-Christian conception of God.
For if God is a super-human, don’t we all have a God complex? Is it any wonder that many of us “play God” by chasing power, asserting authority, and ending lives? God’s human likeness reveals our hubris, our (somewhat endearing) self-absorption, and our limited imagination. Supposedly, God suffuses everything, but that “everything” stems from the will of a Being who sounds suspiciously human.
What if we opted for god instead of God? What if a river was god, instead of God’s creation? If our notions of divinity stemmed from the consciousness of, say, a peony, how might we treat ourselves and the earth differently?
There’s something enthralling about a god consciousness that does not (in any way) resemble human consciousness. If we imagine a god that feels foreign to our human sense of self, we might feel more inclined to practice mindfulness regarding the nature of human consciousness. Perhaps if humanity sees itself as a supporting character rather than the narrator of reality, the human mind becomes a curious object of scrutiny and not a de facto lens for viewing the world.
For me, god is a creatively fecund subject but not a mandate for being awake to the majesty of the world. Raised by a Jewish mother and Catholic father who both identify as atheists, I found my version of holiness through Art and Nature. Yet I love imagining god as energy (or matter or consciousness or stimuli) engaging with itself: a kind of meta-awareness ricocheting through Experience.
I also find the notion of god useful for augmenting my compassion and gentleness. When I view everything that exists as divine, I’m called upon to locate the inherent divinity in all things. It’s a thought exercise that helps me approach the world with more grace and goodwill.
Whenever I task myself with understanding god as a woodpecker, or a cactus, or a pebble, I am taking a moment to appreciate a Being— an Experience— that is not me. Suddenly I find myself seeking the Scripture offered by a woodpecker: the impulse to penetrate the surface of Life, the penchant for storing nourishment in unexpected places, and the ritual of hole-y percussion. Cacti’s Scripture invites me to flourish in adversity, and to cherish the precious fountain of Life. Pebble’s Scripture dares me to round my edges; allowing myself to be chiseled by the larger forces of the world. When I turn my attention beyond myself, with ritualized and appreciative precision, that very act feels like god: I am reminded that god is verb that includes, but does not prioritize, me. For me, god is an active state of interbeing.
In a previous Substack piece, I characterized waste as a human invention. I feel similarly about capital-G God. In fact, whenever God starts to feel like clutter— an excess noise that seems to fortify our humanness but not our humanity— I seek god elsewhere. In my own thinking, god is only “real” when it is useful, unconcerned, and utterly itself in the world: like a creek bed or a lemur. When God becomes a prop or weapon in a human scheme, I think God ceases to be god.
Lately I’ve been spotting the divine everywhere… and it bears a distinct fingerprint. Specifically, I detect god in the tidy logic of Love: in the places where Love seems to reassemble and integrate Pain through the chrysalis of Beauty. I am always astonished by how snug and succinct divine logic feels; as if Love has expressly taken pains to include Pain in its complete recipe for Beauty. This philosophy does not justify or rationalize Pain; instead, it simply extends its arms and murmurs: “And this, too. There is a place for you here in the grand, complicated banquet of life.”
As we approach this formalized day of gratitude, I invite you to look your god in the eye. Does god bring you closer to others, in understanding and in practice? Does god feel like a useful tool in your quest for Life and your questions of Life? Does god stretch your imaginative and empathic capacities? Does god reduce your significance in delicious, destabilizing ways?
Bless the god that allows us to feel simultaneously expanded and diminished by the splendor of the world. Bless the god that does not resemble us even as it reifies the best in us. Bless the god that feels like a blessing rather than a curse. Bless the god that wants to be lived into as a shifting, ever-growing, ever-learning presence. Friedrich Nietzsche declared: “I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.” Bless the Dance.
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Brilliant. As you are. Was singing your praises as a positive and loving human when I was in Uganda in September. Remember? So privileged to read your writing.
Love the clean and refreshingly positive content, and the fluid, confident writing style even more!