An Open Letter to God: Part 1

Dear God:

I think that if I said that I understood you I would be committing one of the most heinous acts of egotism possible. So many people seem to do that every day, without even thinking about it. It seems obvious that, if you exist, then I have even less chance of understanding you than an ant has of understanding me.

I can't explain you; I can't see you; I can't logically (without acrobatics) support your existence, but I can feel you. I feel you in the love I have for my children and for my wife. I feel you in the most profound works of art and music. I feel you around me.

The only thing I know for sure, is that when I feel you there the most strongly, it is in the presence of the beautiful and the profound. And when things are ugly or painful, it is as if you are holding up a lamp for me, in the dark distance, ready to show me the way out -- just a glow in the fog. I don't think a prayer equals an immediate solution, but you sure don't feel like you're the source of the darkness and you sure don't feel like you've gone away to leave me on my own, ever.

It seems as if people have felt you forever and that they have tried to understand you in their own ways. Whether they were nomadic ancient tribes or villagers cowering under the might of a thunderstorm, they have done their best to understand you; to name you; to envision and to depict you...even to pidgeonhole you...

...but, they felt you, just as I do. This, at least, I know.

I'm supposed to be smart, so people think it is really foolish of me to keep believing in you. If I am smart, though, I recognize that it is as foolish to be sure you don't exist as it is to profess to know everything about you. Impossible and inexplicable things happen every day. They happen, whether we can reason them out or not. You've been happening in the minds of humans for millennia. You must be, then, in some way -- if in an inexplicable and intangible way -- real.

Just as electricity illuminates rooms, you light things up in the minds of people. And, like electricity, you can't be seen, but you definitely can be felt. I'm not willing to argue about the whys and the particulars. I'll never take part in a "form" argument about whether, for example, you are "male" or "female." To me, the argument is irrelevant -- even silly. To me, you are the same source of life and wonder you have been to everyone from the caveman to the computer programmer.

I can feel you and that is enough to keep me looking up. It's also enought to keep me constantly curious.

Sincerely,
Chris