(Re)imagining God | Jake Haber

What are we talking about when we talk about "God"? Is there a way of understanding that word that goes beyond our commonly held images and concepts? 

 

Quotes: 

 

Barry Taylor:

"God is the name of the blanket we throw over mystery to give it shape."

 

Rob Bell:

“Whatever we say about God always rests within the larger reality of what we can’t say; meaning always resides within a larger mystery; knowing always takes place within unknowing; whatever has been revealed to us surrounded by that which hasn’t been revealed to us.”

 

Ken Wilber: 

“Every holon is not only a whole, it is also a part. And as a part, it has value for others—it is part of a whole upon which other holons depend for their existence”

 

Thomas Stark: 

“It's time to think anew about the nature of the universe. This is a thinking universe, a self-solving cosmic organism, and we are all nodes, or cells, in this organism, providing our part of the collective answer.”

 

Paul Selig: 

“The denial of the divine is the only real problem that we face."

 

Meister Eckhart: 

"The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love."

 

Richard Rohr: 

“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”

 

Rabbi Adina Allen:

“We should each hold two slips of paper in our pockets, a well-known saying in Jewish tradition goes. On one should be written, “The world was created for me,” on the other, “I am but dust and ashes.”

 

Alan Watts:

“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”

 

Discussion Questions:

What does the word "god" mean to you? 

What images of "god" have you let go of? Which have you held onto?