Writing God

Writing about God is impossible, given the concept of God I favor is “that which cannot be expressed in words.” It’s conveniently non-falsifiable, which is kind of the point, since I view interminable debates over whether God does or does not exist as a deflection (to a false binary) from grappling with felt experience.

I think God can best be seen in the gaps in our stories. Take trauma: everyone has it, but nobody can adequately explain it, because trauma by definition is a painful experience of which the pain cannot be fully articulated. There’s something about your pain that other people will never grasp.

Looking at history, I’d argue that the crucifixion of the God of Love, in human form, is symbolic of that aspect of our pain that we cannot symbolize for ourselves.

Which brings us to today. We’re going through, in the United States, something very traumatic. College students are being snatched off the street by hoodie-clad federal agents for the crime of expressing political opinions. I find this very traumatic. One thing about our country was that it was supposed to be better than this. And now we’re being hit hard with the undeniable truth that, no, it isn’t. We’re as bad as those other countries, the ones we’ve looked down upon, where this kind of disappearing of dissidents is accepted as — if not normal, at best unavoidable.

So why am I trying to write about God at a time like this? It’s a good question, and one I don’t think I can answer, except to say that times like this are what faith is for, and why it endures, because reality can be very humbling and very painful.