Putting God the Father in His Place

I have been thinking about God.  Specifically, I have been thinking about the existence and importance of God.  I suppose I should start at the beginning.  The beginning being a very simple question: Do I believe in God?

The answer is yes.  Sort of.

Which leads to another, not-so-simple but obvious question: Why "sort of"?

Like I said--not so simple.  But I'll try.  I do believe in God the Father.  I think he exists.  And I have a pretty Mormon understanding of what he's like.  He has a body of flesh and bone.  He is distinct from Jesus, God the Mother, and the Holy Ghost.  He loves me and everyone else on earth, past, present, and future.  He's omnipotent, omniscient, aware of everything that happens on earth, yada yada yada.

But the thing is, I just don't care.  I think God's existence is supremely beside the point.  Because in my mind, the point is to live a good life.  To love other people.  To make the world a better place.  To be compassionate, kind, honest, and every other good thing there is.  To strive towards building zion here and now, in this moment, no matter how impossible that may seem.  And God is too often a distraction.

Now that's not to say that I think God is by definition a distraction from those good objectives.  I think many, many people are inspired by their belief in God to be better, more compassionate, more loving people.  However, I think that a belief in, or a focus on a belief in, God is just as likely to fix people's attention on their reward hereafter and distract them from what's important in this life; or, worse, to leave them judgmental of others and therefore unable to reach out in love to all of their brothers and sisters.

So there you have it.  I think God is kind of beside the point.  Which leaves me wondering where my place is in a church which emphasizes the literal existence of God and human beings' ability to become like God.  I find some refuge in some of Mormonism's teachings about God.  That he once was as we now are and that we may become as he now is, for instance.  There's something radically equal between God and human when that is the case, just as there is something radically equal in a true parent-child relationship.  There may be a period of time in which the parent is the adult and responsible for the child, but that relationship changes and opens up to even greater joy when parent and child know each other as adults, as equals.

This idea--that divinity lies within each and every woman and man and child--leads me to my most cherished belief about God: that he is accessible only through ourselves and others.  We can only know God when we truly and deeply know and understand our own divine potentional; when we reach out and accept the divine in every other we encounter, regardless of how different or frightening they may appear.

So when I say God is beside the point, that the point really should be loving others, I suppose I'm in a sense placing God right back in the center.  Because to know and love oneself, and to know and love others, is to know and love God.