Thinking about God

I have been thinking about God recently. Not God according to the Christianity, nor Islam, nor Buddhism, nor Hinduism, just God. And this is a big deal for me because many years ago, I was submerged in water and I dedicated my life to serve the Most High for the rest of my life. Dedicated my life. This is the phrase used by Jehovah’s Witnesses for the process before baptism, actually baptism is the fulfilment of that dedication, it is a promise to serve. But this can only happen after you have entrenched yourself in the belly of the religion and understood the tenets and principles of being a Jehovah’s Witness. I achieved that in 1998. I was sixteen years old and had not yet seen what life had up its sleeves for me.

Now this dedication of my life seems to be real. Like a serious pledge that I can’t shake. Because no matter what path I walk it seems by hell or high water I am compelled to serve God. But now after been estranged from the religion and taking my own path I know a lot more than just the ideas of a place of worship. I know stuff about every religion and I admire and respect them all. God has become more to me than a denomination. I also know that God is a place of comfort, and a place of deliverance and peace, and tradition and growth for people in every single religion and denomination of Christianity. I even understand in multiple ways Marx’s statement that religion is the opiate of the masses.

The reason I have been thinking about God is simply because I have been thinking about myself as a writer and what I want people to think about as it relates to my work. And then I realized that really, all I can do is tell you what I have been thinking about and let you do with it that which you must. So, there you have it, I have been thinking about God.

Now, here is the complexity in the thought. So as you know I am a queer Caribbean woman who was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, therefore even this conversation is blasphemous at most and problematic at least. I have lost a lot and will continue to lose a lot for the sake of this life and these investigations. But it seems that the deeper I go searching for God or Spirit is the more scripture becomes manifest and the more clarity I receive about the work and myself. The more I engage in the work is the more I see paths open up for me and the things I never thought possible suddenly become definite. But still I am left thinking in the language of duality: right and wrong, life and death, true and false, true God and Devil. These chains are hard to break.

As I worked my way through this idea of God, I looked through my journal and came up on a mantra that came to me when I just started meditation as a routine to heal myself after a major break up mostly it was my way to not go crazy. The mantra ended with the phrase we are one. Now that is not a strange statement I think until I asked an artist who I am connected to energetically to give me a scar in my back. I begged for this scar since she had done two before, (strange I know, but not the point) and she drew the image that inspired the mantra. She drew a tree. Here is the mantra:

I am the roots

I am the bark

I am the branches

I am the leaves

I am the fruit

I am the fruit that falls

I am the humus that fertilizes the ground

I am the roots

I am the tree

We are one

I dismiss the idea of coincidence and allowed her to cut the tree and the leaves in my back and watched it heal for a year, soaking in the realization that this means something that I dare not forget.

Last year when I was head high in debt at home and stifling from lack of possibility, I got into Grad School in a country I had no real ties in and survived through divine provision, but there I realized the connection between these thoughts and the questions the intellectuals in the Caribbean have been asking in literature and cultural studies. It has all been a philosophical engagement with identity and the inability to define this new space of the Caribbean is much like the question I have been having with myself and worship.

So, the new space of my own being is the fact that I am- by am I mean I identify with and in- multiple spaces, intellectual, woman, queer, childish, masculine, writer, spiritual, Afrocentric, Jamaican, insecure, confident and much more. Many of these spaces have difficulty sitting in each other’s company and being comfortable. This is the problem of identity as Stuart Hall puts it, and so my being is the landscape of pluralism. A site of confusion, and clarity. And this made me think about God and my mantra: we are one. Because really, why should I while existing in this fragmented reality be made to walk a clean line as the only way to get to God?

A few years ago, after the scar and my own pleasure from having survived that trauma my investigation in meditation took me to Yoruba. As a way to get closer to God I looked at a book called Opening to Spirit and it also seemed, though Yoruban in its context, to see the mythology and spirit world through pluralism. In the text the chakras are to be opened and understood in order for a connection to spirit to be formed. It is from examining this text that I created a Mandala.

A mandala is a Hindu/ Buddhist symbol used by either a group or an individual as a connection between themselves and the universe. It usually used in mediation to guide the devotee away from their own thoughts and to help to stimulate positive thoughts reinforcing ideas and the connection with the universe.

What I thought was special about my mandala was the fact that it was my own creation assisted by an artist who simply got it right, but it has symbols from many other religions. It was plural yet singular. And in this was a mirror of the mantra: We Are One…

I have been thinking about God lately. And wondering about the way that messages come to us and cultures change and religions and mythology adapt to reveal and serve these cultures. Joseph Campbell did extensive research on this, providing the four functions of mythology. The final of which is that mythology should serve a pedagogical function: It should teach us how to live. This is in fact the purpose of the prophets of Christianity, of Christ himself, of Buddha, of Muhammed, of the Ifas of Yoruba and the prophets of Hinduism.

So in thinking about God and I begun to think of the rest of us, we who are fragmented, othered and isolated- shouldn’t we find a way to God? Or are we bound to destruction since our hybrid form is offensive in its inability to contort and conform itself into the principles of the religions we are raised to hold as tradition?

In thinking about God and this idea of dedication and service I wonder about the habits I have formed and still carry from my days as a Jehovah’s Witness, for example exploration of scriptures, and prayer, the things I took from the my days of healing such as meditation and yoga, the things I take now as symbol and ritual to help me fulfil what I am assured through manifestations and experience and faith as my walk towards the purpose of service and dedication. This is so because even my assignments are beginning to force me to grapple with these thoughts academically. I just wrote a paper where I had to confront the idea of sacredness or divinity being in everywhere and within everything; therefore, admitting that I must pay attention to my own scrutiny and bias towards God. And so, I have been thinking about God.

In the meantime I add another tattoo to my skin this time the mandala as an affirmation of this path towards Spirit/God/Universe. An acknowledgment of we are one and a recognition of my own mediation and my consciousness. And since in order to endure the pain I had to chant some rasta music the thing tie up in all kinds of rituals and so I began to think about culture and God.

When asked by Bill Moyer if there is a new mythology for this world, Joseph Campbell responded no, he said the world is moving too quickly for a new mythology. The premise of that question was that each culture has a God that suits their times. Technology and globalisation is swaying our need for the sacred and increasing our awareness of the sacred all at the same time. It’s an interesting time to be alive. This may be the time that God has become both more human and more controlling as well as most expansive, philosophical and patient. But could He be transforming according to our culture?

I know at this point the Christians will interject quickly and shout, “God never changes he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end”. But I didn’t come to trouble that idea, no matter how it sounds problematic to some like the agnostic and the atheists. My question is as it relates to us and our ability to assign, access, encode, decode meanings, will our now expansive reach and range of knowledge not affect the way we engage with God? And yes, I can hear the Christians shouting again and that is why you have to be careful of what you consume so as to not go astray. But from what can we go astray if our understanding of God has become even more expansive?

Here is another way to look at this point: So, love in Christianity is as important as punishment. But look at what technology and globalisation has done to love and the act of loving. The entire concept has been reduced to romantic love and coupling and reproduction by Hollywood and music. And yet, it is still being lauded as the thing that can and will save humanity. In these films, entire world will be saved by romantic entanglements. But we are exposed to the love because of technology from multiple cultures. But if we look in certain spaces we can begin to find mutlipe definitions for love beyond pop culture, beyond Hollywood that provide a diversity of expressions. And its there in novels and poetry, youtube videos,  magazines, newspaper articles, journals and blogs that see love not just as romantic but in all its forms, languages and cultural renderings. Therefore, encoding and decoding meaning from this place has an interesting effect on the world. So by this very expanded narrative, love for some is questioned. It is seen beyond Hollywood's reduced narrative, and the possibilities of its potential unfolds and we are able to see the way various cultures treat love and loving; while, holding Hollywood’s idea and a recognition that will save the world in our heads. Love becomes expansive. So why not God?