What is God? A who? A where? A sound? A feeling? I'd argue: anything you want God to be.
The above linked video is one I just watched moments before opening up my text editor to start this post. I know it's been a while since my last update, and for that, I apologize. The concept introduced in that video of The Hole describes where I've been. Luckily, I feel as though I've reached out of it before sinking into The Maze. (This all makes more sense in context of the video, but you don't need to watch it to understand the rest of this blog post.)
I've been wallowing in this pit of despair since I was left with basically no option but to move back to my hometown back in January. There's this curse that my hometown seems to attempt to place on everyone who has ever lived here, which is that you cannot escape. I have tried. I went to college 2 hours away, only to have a "come to Jesus" moment that sent me back here to finish out a different degree. I finished my degree and moved with my partner at the time to a city an hour away. Even after our breakup, I stayed there another year and a half. For reasons I won't get into (too personal and also not entirely my business), I had to find a new living situation and fast. My sister was moving out of our mom's in the same month my lease in that city ended. Now, we live together in our hometown.
I'm back, again, and far from happy about the fact.
I've been losing myself to my grief at the lost lives I've led in other places not so far from here. I long for escape. I long to leave with my few loved ones and never ever look back. One day. I hope when my current lease ends, I can leave this town for good. Leave the state. Leave the Midwest.
So, what does this have to do with God?
I've been questioning my spirituality for about a year now. I fear that my move back has only exacerbated that. I was not raised religious. I started going to church regularly in late elementary school to spend time with my best friend. It was fun. It was light. It gave me something to pray to in hopes that my prayers were not for nothing. But I didn't believe, not truly. When that same friend told me that God does not make angels from our lost loved ones, I spiraled. I know, if her God is the real one, that none of my lost ones are in the Heaven she imagines for hers. We are sinners. We are indulgent, greedy, and selfish. We would burn, if she has it right.
And maybe she does. Who am I to say? But what a very bleak and unforgiving idea that is. I refuse to subscribe to such beliefs again.
I spoke with my mom of energy and souls, and I thought I was enlightened by that conversation. That I'd finally found in her what I truly believed. That the core of the Earth holds all the souls and energy and vibrations of life, and they are fed into new bodies during birth and fed into the Earth after death. It's a nice idea. That our loved ones will not suffer as they did alive in some fucked up afterlife like Hell. That they're with us forever, as everyone is with us all forever. It's a nice idea.
I don't believe it. I've tried parroting my mom, and it isn't her fault that I don't believe in her idea of the world, but the words tasted ashy on my tongue. They were hollow. Nothing words. Meaningless to me, even if they aren't to the one who gave me life. It explained away my crystal and tarot card collections. It explained away my piss-poor attempts at spell work. It explained away my grief. It explained it all away too perfectly. It's not what I believe. That doesn't mean it isn't real, but it's not to me. That's what matters.
I've tried the taste of "Atheist" in my mouth. It doesn't fit nicely in there. It's another forced explanation of my beliefs about our world, even if it means I hold no beliefs. I don't, but I'm not an Atheist. I don't think I am, anyway.
I'm trying out a new explanation of planet Earth and her inhabitants. Maybe there isn't energy to everything in the world. Maybe we don't have souls. Maybe there is not higher being overlooking all our suffering and pain and hand-picking who deserves to continue that way after death. Maybe it's everything and nothing. Maybe God is real, but not in the way you might imagine I mean.
This word vomit of a blog post exists only to attempt to connect with others who might feel the same. I quite like Hayden's idea of God as a feeling. As coming out of this Great Dark where we live usually through The Ring to reach the Divine Theatre, where we become flush with God. I believe this, I think. I've felt God, I think. Not a religious God, not a Christian or Islamic or Jewish or any other kind of God. My God. Your God might be different from mine…it probably should be.
God is everywhere and nowhere. God is in that 20 minute song that makes you close your eyes, cry, and/or levitate above your body. God is in the wind. God is your bare feet in the dirt. God is in the lovely conversations with your loved ones that makes life feel worth living again. God is in the art we create, in the art we experience and enjoy, in the art we dream of.
God isn't real. But isn't it? When it all comes down to it, does any of this even matter?
Not unless you want it to matter. God's existence is the same, to me. It doesn't exist unless you want it to. So, what is God to you?