OK, so I had the last of my Easter Bunny/Santa Claus/God moments in a post the other day.
In truth, I never really believed in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, and I was in my late teens when I became aware that the personal god of fundamentalism was really just the third part of the fairy tale trinity.
But our friend Sarah was right. In a comment to my God post the other day, she wrote something I already knew:
I don’t know where this idea of “if there’s a god, nothing bad should ever happen to anyone” came from. I can only speak for Christianity, but the Bible is full of stories about terrible things happening to people, including people of faith.
As a Theosophist, I don’t believe in a god that could make everything better with a simple command or thought. I stopped believing in that when I had my first “there is no God” moment back when I was 18 or 19 — not long after George Harrison turned me on to eastern spirituality.
But when I cried the other day for the passengers of the plane that we now know was shot down by the Iranian military, I regressed to my childhood years when I believed “fairy tales can come true/It can happen to you if you’re young at heart.”
My heart was broken. It still is. We are a nation of broken hearts today.
It’s not the first time I regressed on the god point. When my late, beloved Rick died suddenly, I had more than a few expletives for the non-existent God.
I’m not sure why someone (moi) who feels she has evolved on the spiritual ladder beyond the Easter Bunny/Santa/God trinity finds herself angry at said mythical being at times like these.
I’m not ready to accept that karma could have been at play, even though I believe in karma. It’s Spiritual Agriculture 101. Sow, reap, sow, reap. If it’s karma, then it sucks big time . . . but don’t get me started on that.
And I’m not ready to acknowledge something else I feel might quite possibly be true: that the spirits of the departed very much exist, are at peace now, and will be embodied again in another space in time.
More fanciful and wishful thinking, you might be thinking.
But why couldn’t it be true? As Voltaire said, “it is no more surprising to live twice than it is to live once.”
And that’s really the hope I want to share with you today, after the negative post the other day.
Our lives are a miracle, no matter how you look at it. To limit the miracle for us to a single incarnation may very will be shortsighted, and laughable if we do finally shed our current mortal coils to find much grander vistas awaiting us.
We have consensus among the readers of this blog, I think, that no god exists that can save mankind with a simple directive or thought. But we can’t say the same about the existence of something timeless — spirit, for lack of a better term — that is thought by many to reside in and animate each of us. Au contraire, who hasn’t felt there is something in them that doesn’t seem to age at all? The animator is ever the same, from childhood to the grave.
That’s some kind of proof, maybe.
And could it be that same spirit that weeps with all the others who are mourning the loss of innocent lives?
It’s times like these when we realize just how connected we are. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said something to that effect today at a memorial in Edmonton for the victims of the Ukrainian plane disaster while commenting about the collective shock and mourning In Canada.
Yes, all life is demonstrably and indisputably connected. No matter how you look at it, we all are the products of the same universal seed or unknowable divine source: Big Bang, creation, or a combination of the two. We are all part of the same cosmic process.
While speaking of the fundamental oneness of all mankind, theosophists write:
Altruism and compassion are human expressions of cosmic and planetary realities. Humanity is more closely joined inwardly than physically, and our thoughts and feelings have a potent impact on others.
When we weep together, it speaks volumes about our universal oneness.
In those tears, there is hope, then.
— Jillian
Jillian Page 
I haven’t closed my mind to the possibility that there’s an intelligence (let’s call it god) that could swoop in and make everything better.
The point I was trying to make: Some people think that if god exists, then it follows that he/she/it would/should swoop in and make things better, and since that’s not happening, god must not exist, or god is somehow letting us down and not living up to his/her/its obligations.
I disagree that it follows. It’s possible that if god were to swoop in and make everything better, it would negate the reason for our physical existence on this planet.
My position is that there may or may not be a god (honestly, I lean toward there is, but some days I cross to the other side). If there is a god, he/she/it is under no obligation to make everything better, and not stepping in doesn’t mean he/she/it doesn’t care.
So I try to keep an open mind when it comes to the god question . The truth is that we just don’t know why we exist, if there is or isn’t a god, etc. But it’s fun to speculate.
I’ll be very surprised if this life is it, meaning that this universe came into existence through some random freak of something and has no eternal meaning. So I agree that something timeless exists, including ourselves. Am I sure? Hell, no. But I lean that way.
I think some of this is terminology. What you refer to as “spirit,” “something timeless,” “something that doesn’t age,” I would refer to as “divine.”
I love thinking about this stuff, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. All we can do is live the best life we can, treating others as we’d like to be treated. The rest is window dressing.
(Hopefully you didn’t get this comment multiple times. I had problems submitting it.)
LikeLike
I agree. We have to live the best life we can, and be good for the sake of being good.
I found the two other versions of your response in the spam folder, so the next response you make might have to be approved. Usually, the first response a person makes to a post has to be approved, and after that, future responses automatically appear. But wordpress can be funky at times.
Cheers
LikeLike