What's in a Name?

Alright, alright, so maybe “the Cosmos” isn’t the most personal and intimate designation for the Almighty but, in a funny way, it works for me. As a former fundamentalist who took EVERYTHING literally in the Bible, I believed that God was in fact a fatherly type being who loved me and cared for me. I never questioned the patriarchal bias against women and assumed I was a second class citizen.

Anyway, after leaving the rigid fold of spiritual abuse, I encountered all sorts of names for God. G-D, let His name never be spoken. Her name? Its name. you see how confused I am. I don’t know WHAT to call this supreme being who seems to have manic/depression (note the seasons, wasps, sunflowers, typhoons, sea horses, bluebirds) or is wildly hyperactive with attention deficit disorder. No offense on my Higher Power but something seems to be a little amiss around here.

Like, for instance, why don’t we know its (their?) name? A friend of mine says we should just call God “ALL” but that sounds too much like a laundry detergent. (It IS a laundry detergent.) I have landed on the side of “cosmos” or “universe” or “Mystery” because those seem to be the most general and inoffensive terms to my sensibilities. Other strokes for different folks.

This doesn’t solve the problem of a personal relationship with the Lord. See, I said it. “The Lord.” Now is that Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed or Lao T’se. No, I like to think of hanging out with Jesus even though he could be disconcertingly unpredictable – one minute tenderly gathering the flock, the next minute trashing tables in the temple. It’s hard to let my guard down with him sometimes because I just don’t know what he’s going to do next. It’s kind of hard to get the warm fuzzies from a spiritual terrorist (not that I’m saying that’s what Jesus was but he WAS radical. And “love” don’t even get me started.)

I know I’m going into more detail about my spiritual journey that you probably asked for but this, as they say, is “where I’m at.” My personal relationship and experience of connection with the Lord is the most important thing in my life. God and I have discussed this a lot – what he/she/it wants to be called and it mostly depends on how I’m feeling that day. I have lots of appellations for my husband – Lucky, Duardo, Duecalion, Duke, Guagy, darling, studmuffin – you get the idea. So why not God? What’s important here is how we’re relating to each other and I suppose as I slow down and stop looking over my shoulder all the time, I’ll relax into just calling God, God.

I have a ways to go before that happens. For now, like e.e.cummings said, God is everything that is “Yes.” So, Yes, I worship you. Yes, I love you. Yes, I marvel in you. Now, THAT’S a mystery worth seeking.

Suffering From Reality

So I’ve been thinking of changing my blog again. I mean the whole thing. I’m bored with it so if I’m bored with it, why shouldn’t everyone else be? It’s gotten too serious – I’ve gotten too serious. I need to lighten up. Maybe throw in some photos of kittens (I don’t own cats) or post a picture of my last trek up Mt. Everest. No, I think the problem is this. My focus has become diffuse – that is to say – I don’t have a particular topic I’m writing on, except REALITY.

Can we narrow that down?

How about to a cult-survivor’s reality?

There are certain ways cult survivors see the world that “Normal” reality-survivors don’t. For instance, I tend to distrust ALL authority figures based on my bad experience in the Way, where the Prophet/Teacher/Doctor didn’t know his @#* from his elbow. Now that’s a distortion because there ARE (a few) authority figures (even in the ministry) who are sincere and upright. My minister happens to be one of them.

Also, as a former cultist, I tend to think that those in authority should be PERFECT or they’re total flops. That’s a cognitive distortion (to use Burns’ term) known as all-or-nothing thinking. Just because my minister happens to have a few flaws, say, he is obese, does not mean he is a bad person. He is actually a very intelligent and kind and thoughtful person.

So I’m back to where I started, kind of. But I think I’m going to change the name to “Suffering from Reality.” Is that too much of a bummer? I want to be bright and cheerful and helpful but even the Buddha’s first noble truth was that “all life is suffering.” To be alive is to suffer. But reality can be tolerable, if not downright fun, if we just know how to detach from our crazy thinking patterns – ie, thinking patterns learned in the cult.

One caveat – you don’t have to have been in a cult to suffer from these cognitive distortions. Everyone’s thinking is warped in some way – otherwise we wouldn’t be the loveable humans that we are. So keep thinking and keep reading and keep suffering from reality. Maybe one of these days, we’ll see that suffering is thriving simply by virtue of staying in the game. You go, girls and boys.