I am overwhelmed by these responses.
It IS inexplicable....isn't it?? I am sitting here with a huge grin while typing these words and I feel as if I'm almost floating above my chair. I sense a Being here interested in my response to you....
<3
This gave me goosebumps. I feel out of my mind but this experience is familiar to me.
Do you ever feel afraid or daunted? Unworthy? Have you ever felt alone again or lonely in spite of knowing such presence?
I think it's ok to not believe. Jesus is a creeper, he'll fucking find you one day.
I think that even without belief, the force finds it way into our lives whether or not we like it or accept it.
I can't say that is a force that governs much like what religion is to us, but that it's just among us and with us and within us. Maybe that's some form of governance too like what
@Sloe Djinn pointed out. I'm sure though that it doesn't seem to matter to it what we believe. It just will be and is.
@David54'a description is accurate:
I find God, or he finds me everyday. Especially here, with beauty and quiet power all around.
She sits on top of her mountain and simply asks, come. Find a path, make your own, but come. He reminds me she didn't make religion, or write books, just come as you are.
She began to call to me in my early fortys, after leaving the church many years ago. The one thing we shared is that she is in me, not in a building. Not in a book. Not in a sermon..those things are about man, not her.
Yet I seek the church, and find him there, because you see, she is in me. Where i go, he goes
My relationship. I feel like we're pen-pals or some such. Like we check in on each other every now & then. That being said I feel protected. That, so long as my choices aren't reckless or irresponsible, things will work out. I don't feel God's presence or anything, but I don't need to.
Nurturing. By shedding those things from my life that don't feel like they match my priorities, and by doing my best to align my priorities with my purpose on Earth.
Also, lately I've taken to taking inventory of my moral shortcomings before bed. It helps me stay mindful of areas which need improving. I feel it also keeps me humble, and helps me have better understanding or tolerance for others.
Why must I live with God in my life? I don't know really. I don't think I have to, and for some years I didn't. It's a choice, though what I consider living with God in my life may be different than others.
Win3, I have a question. Were you taught about God? Could you say that you ever embarked on a journey of knowing God better?
I don't try to keep gods in my life or not. I don't have a choice, either way. Either there are gods and I honor them via a code of living, or there are no gods and I live via a code because it is the right thing to do.
Haaaaaaah please expound on this. So basically, you do you. Right? Just like what
@Wyote said:
being.
My mother used to say, don't rely on your own strength. Listen to your ancestors. And I'm like: how do I even do that?
1) Not great
2) I’m not and that’s gotten me into trouble periodically. It leaves me without an anchor for my own stability.
3) I think it’s the only way to find happiness…or misery. God to me is the gift of choice to see my heaven or hell within and around me.
This is just my take. As I see it, everyone is inherently religious. It governs how we interpret, interact, and cope with existence. The lens that I view the world through is pretty small and opaque. I think I’m still pretty blind to the road signs I encounter that would point out the way to…wherever it is I want to be.
I wonder where that is, Sloe. So am I right in understanding that having God in your life is you living by a set of codes? Are these codes personal to you? Did you learn them along the way? Do you experience it as though these were taught to you or is it more like walking throughout life by yourself? What happens if you don't follow the code? Do you chastise yourself too?
Why Pin? And how too?
@Kgal listens. I know
@Wyote does too.
@Asa walks through forests. How do you pray, Pin?
I'm not sure if I can answer your questions specifically.
It doesn't matter!!! The seeding questions were meant to be a starting point. I simply want to learn more about how God is felt/experienced/lived on a personal level by others.
I agree. The experiences in my life that helped me grow most were both related to death.
Death & life have a yin-yang relationship.
Death and profound, desperate dejection or sadness. Rock bottom does things.
For me personally, God was handed to me on a platter. As a kid, Sundays were always church days with family. The church is a short walk from our house so it was always a family matter of walking to church together, the kids are allowed to play about after mass until we're all home to have breakfast together (we always have meals together). For much of my life, it was a ritual. It was also a ritual that cultivated a sense of joy about Sundays. It always felt nice. I wasn't really aware of a life without God, even though I could not say I understood what God was at this time. I sat in church pews as though by default. I listened to God stories questioning the behaviors of its characters. Why would Jesus forgive Mary Magdalene? Why would God let angels tempt his Son in the desert if He was so almighty? Every story seemed weird. How does it even happen that an angel would impregnate a virgin? Isn't that defiance? Rape? The church's answer was always that it was God.
The seeking started there, I think, because why God? Why is God the answer? The answers didn't start to make sense until I myself was going through pains I could not understand. I felt pain relatively early in life but it made me feel so dejected in my teens --- typical of hormones, I suppose but that was when I first believe I experienced such forces. I can't eloquently give it justice. It's simply a very clear understanding that God is real and that if I were to believe otherwise, my whole being would disintegrate. The weird thing is, I did eventually start to wonder otherwise later on in life. Maybe God isn't real. I still haven't found a credible argument that establishes that there is no God. Every argument and the very existence of it seems to only point to the fact that there is God. Whether or not we choose to believe, God remains. We will never understand God or whatever it should be named, but it exists. My conviction is perhaps drawn from experience, and if it were to be argued that my experience itself is not real then what else is real? Nothing. And if we aren't real, what's the point? Each time I embark on the conquest, the only answer for me is that God is real and so are my pains. In pain is when my seeking gets complicated because if God is real and I am loved, why are we in pain? Why was Mary Magdalene in pain? Why did Judas sin? I still don't have the answers to all of that. My only seeming answer that feels somewhat right is that pain is a vessel for acceptance to be necessary. God is the acceptor. The ultimate being that accepts. Understanding God is impossible but believing in God makes it possible to accept our worst pains. And in that, we heal. So then God is a force among us and through us, that swishes through all of us to make us one and helps us heal. This is how God is good and God is also angry and God is also loving, and kind, and jealous, and everything...
Sometimes to me, God is experienced as a call to one-ness. When I am lost in the mundanity of my life, getting absorbed in societal codes or whatnot, my pain is a call to go back to the cognizance of one-ness with God. In prayer, in surrender, in worship, in humility, I concede to being of God and by God. It's not a matter of religion, it's a matter of existence for me. It's as though I am shaken to face God and be with God again--- to never stray. Ah damnit I can't stop sounding like a preacher.
I think
@Wyote is right. We all each have our own journey. I want to learn from it. I want to understand. I want to know if God manifests similarly or if God is as central to your existence or not in the same way that the idea of God oscillates within me. Some days I edge toward believing in no God and then I get pulled back to, nope, there is God. It's a mind-fucking journey. It's so annoying sometimes, but it's how it is for me.
Also, I am grateful for these exchanges. It feels nice. LOL. I have no better word for it than that. LOLOLOLOLOL
I'm not sure if I can answer your questions specifically. I'll try to answer them in spirit.