Where do I look?

I sometimes think I give you all a slanted picture of me because I tend to post a lot of spiritual stuff in this blog. I am not a particularly religious person and have actually spent very much of my life wondering if we didn’t invent God because we feared death and needed to convince ourselves that there was more after this. This thought still rumbles around in my head, but it no longer causes me discomfort because I believe in more. Even if this is all there is, I am very happy and not at all afraid of that “long dreamless sleep”. But I do believe in God….just not the same one as most of you. Well I just complained of focusing too much on religion, but here I go again (I don’t really talk about it with anyone else, so I tend to put it all here).

I was raised as a Catholic and spent my formative years in the church. While there were times when I felt exalted, most of my years in the church were a sham. The ritual and the aloofness overcame the sense of community for me. I never found God in the church. I can feel God in my heart and in the hearts of some of the people that I know and meet (certainly not all of them and actually the number is less than I’d like).

I have written a lot about my belief that this world is a lie and that we need to look within ourselves to see God. I have also said that sex and love are windows on truth and beauty…God is here too, but we need to be careful not to hold on too tight, as these will make us turn toward the material and away from the truth. There is one other place where I see God in this material world…it is in nature. I believe that whoever built this world (of lies) tried hard to copy the real world of truth and beauty; I don’t think he completely failed at this. When I am at peace, in the woods, and far from man’s devices and desires, I can often see God in the material beauty of nature. I have said before that if I have a church, this is it. When I look for God, I look to the trees and the flowers; I look to green things.

I hope you can find him/her somewhere too and I hope that when you find that place, you can still your emotions and drink in as much as you need. I have tried many times (without much success) to really meditate, like the Buddhists. I have a trip back to Hong Kong coming in a week or so. I am scheduling a side trip to see one of the Great Buddha’s. Maybe I’ll try to talk with one of the monks? At the very least, I’m going to try to sit and still my mind….Let’s see if I can’t make another connection and find another place…the one deep within me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Best! Norm.