My New Focus

I'm not that interested in God anymore. I remember when I used to think about him all the time. I haven't really done that in months. I no longer think of God as a person most of the time. Now he's kind of a concept. A hypothesis. I have no real interest in "relating to" God. There's nothing about the dynamic between God and myself that resembles a relationship. We don't talk. (Well, I talk sometimes, but we don't converse.) We don't really interact in any way. I've come to the point where I feel like I believe in God, but that it's not a belief that I attach a lot of significance to. (When I talk about whether God exists, I mean whether he exists as a being who influences our world and is involved in our lives. I have no interest in a transcendent "first cause" type being - only in a being that has some relevance to my world.) I am of the opinion that God exists, but I don't think it would affect my life in any huge way if I changed my mind.

I was thinking the other day about why I'm a Christian. I think it's probably mostly because the people around me are Christians. It is convenient for me to believe certain things because it allows me to relate more closely with those around me. I'm not saying I don't believe in Jesus and all that stuff - I do - but I believe out of conscious choice, and I choose to believe because it's expedient, and also to a certain extent out of inertia. (I've always been a Christian, there seems to be nothing better out there, so why change?) I'm also not saying that there are no good reasons to be a Christian, or that I suspect the whole thing is untrue. I'm just saying that I don't care so much whether it's true. Well, I suppose I still do care. But I don't expect to ever come to a firm conclusion, and it's no longer my greatest concern.

I guess what I'm thinking is that I don't want my life to be God-centric anymore. A God-centric life is dangerous because honestly (I mean HON-estly) there is no God with which we can interact. Or if there is, then it's next to impossible to distinguish this God from the things we mistake for him. I want to base my life on goodness. In some ways this is a fine distinction, because we assume that God is the embodiment or the source of goodness, and that goodness is like-ness to God. I'm not even sure how to describe this distinction to you. Maybe I'm putting God on the back-burner. Or maybe what I'm doing is taking my vague God-focus and refining it.

I don't know if I've ever said this explicitly, but I think I a lot of my life to date has been defined by the statement "I'm seeking God." There are two problems with this. The first, as I said above, is that God is such an enigma. How do I know if my beliefs/experiences/whatever are achieving my God-goal or not? The second is that "seeking God" is so broad. Does it mean seeking supernatural-feeling experiences? Honing spiritual disciplines? Striving for goodness? Building some kind of pseudo-relationship with an elusive deity? I suppose it means all of those things, usually. What I've decided is that this is all too broad - and more to the point, too difficult - for me. Not just too difficult, but too ambiguous. Too many things to juggle, too many ephemeral substances sliding through my fingers, too much uncertainty about whether I'm on the right path, whether I'm moving forward or back, or whether I'm simply stagnating. Why should I expend so much energy in a hopeless search for a God who gives no indication of wanting to be found by me (and little indication that he even exists)?

So I think what I'm saying is that I'm narrowing my focus. I'm going to concentrate on the stuff I can do. Not that I'm good at goodness, but at least I know what I'm seeking and how to seek it. And sure, goodness is still frightfully ambiguous. Sure, it's danged hard to pursue. But it's a lot clearer and easier than pursuing God, and I think that's as much as I can hope for.

One final clarification: this is not a recommendation. My goal in writing this (and my goal in most of my writing) is not to convince you to agree with me or be more like me. We're all different, and we're all on different paths. But I am interested in your thoughts.

(April is up. May is up.)