Where Is God?

One of the greatest questions since the discovery that the earth revolved around the sun, and that the universe is far vaster than had been previously imagined is simply, “Where is God?” This is as significant a question as whether God exists. What if God does not “exist” in this universe, but rather in a mysterious manner in what may be a vast “multiverse?” So that at times of God’s choosing, God may break through to reveal aspects of the Divine Nature, our nature, and what kind of a relationship God seeks with us.

We do not encounter God in this universe of time and space. We cannot point to God among “objects” or “subjects” like persons. So we wonder, is there a God? How can we find this God? Perhaps Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) was right: we may encounter God only in God’s own space. Add to that: only at moments of God’s own choosing, not ours. This has been my experience, as well as that of others across the span of recorded history.

What if God is secretly between us? What if there is an invisible “God-Field” not unlike a gravity field? And what if this God-Field signifies what is meant by the phrase “the kingdom of God”? Jesus came to announce and serve as the chief representative of this enigmatic yet long sought kingdom, wherein God is finally, fully in active command, where evil cannot enter and safe sanctuary is assured. What if God’s kingdom, signifying God’s “Field of Spirit” may at times intangibly invade our “secular” time and space, transforming it into the realm of the Holy, which regardless of its apparent duration and whatever space it seemingly occupies, rather like an imperceptible gas filling available space, permanently affects those caught and breathing in that field? Once again, this accords with my encounters with God.

What if God is hidden among us as Love, which exists as much between as within us? Then the Scriptural statement that “God is love,” would have to be taken literally. Then “God” would signify as much a verb as a noun. This might also mean that our chief service for God is to bear and actually increase love in this world. Love-bearers would then also be “God-bearers.”

Now God apparently avoids the “signs and wonders” which so many still hope for, as if to bolster their flagging faith. Rather, God appears to prefer the softer, simpler approach of love itself, coming to us from others and emerging from us as possibly our greatest gift to the God who is love. This would make us rather like honey bees, whose purpose is to gather nectar and turn it into honey, which is the only food stuff that never decays. Neither does love.

This would signify that to encounter God we must enter into direct relationship. I believe that when we reveal ourselves to each other, God secretly discloses God’s Presence between us. God has shown me in ways beyond description how God abides between us, in the mutual realm. With Eckhart, we may only experience the living God in love’s sacred space between us.
When the mutual world of relationships is recognized and accepted as real as the world within and the world around us, an irreversible paradigm shift will occur. Once the mutual world is granted as significant a reality as the internal and external realms, even if seen from a strictly human point of view, the door cannot again be closed to God. The lines of human to human relationships cannot be severed from the possibility of divine-human connection as well.

Granting reality to the mutual world will restore to religion the sacred space treasured by its traditions. God is the end, the height, depth and breadth of all love relationships. God is love; God is the Spirit-Field which lives and moves and has its being both within and between us, which seeks to draw us ever more fully into love, which means into God. Once we apprehend the mutual realm, the rigid lines heretofore separating the secular from the sacred will be blurred, if not erased. A slight shift in what we share with one another, and in a flash a profane can become a profound conversation, where and when the sacred manifests itself in the heart of the ordinary. As Jesus indicated, when we gather together in the name of love, we gather together in the kingdom of God. It’s been here in our midst all along.