A Revised View of God

After doing some more reading, to my mind God is now a force that pervades and surrounds the universe, but not One Who has an active role in killing or letting live.

Perfect example: I was at Chabad House (an international Jewish organization with stations on every college campus) baking challah (Sabbath bread) with the Rebbetzin (Rabbi's wife) and some other girls, and I was telling the Rebbetzin about my new idea of God. She countered it with the story of her father's death: a freak accident in a boat on a stormy lake when he was 42. She said that this proved that God puts everyone in the right place at the right time; we just don't always understand. I suggested that God was the storm that killed her father, but that God God's self did not kill her father. She could not see the difference.

Another example, this one from me: picture a stream flowing along, with rocks and sand and other obstacles in the way. God is the water in the stream, or at the very least God set the stream in motion. The obstacles in the way, however, are not God; they are merely part of the universe.

Oh my goodness. I just thought of something. If God is water running over obstacles then the nature of God can change. If we humans are those "obstacles," then we have the power to change God. Read that again: We have the power to change God!

[Edited to add: After talking to my father (he's a Rabbi), I have a new perspective on our role as obstacles in the stream. We do not change God God's self; we change God's role in the world.]

All that being said, I still plan to write letters to an anthropomorphized God. Writing those letters brings me great fulfillment, and I have to be writing to a "something" or a "someone" in order to be writing at all. Despite my new understanding and enlightenment, I think it is OK to do this as long as I firmly remember that all of this (including this post) is metaphor.

Please don't be offended by this statement, because I feel compelled to write it: God be with you!

P.S. Every day from here on out, I plan to look all the way through one "waiting children" listing on Reece's Rainbow, really try to SEE every child, and then "yell" for them. Today I am "yelling" for Down Syndrome boys, 0-2. Please keep in mind that the "LOST BOYS" locked away in adult mental institutions represent the future of these kids if not adopted.