Liturgies

Friday, October 28th 2016

The God Within

By Tony Ryan

I have always loved the story of the little boy who was sitting in his bedroom and drawing on a piece of paper. His mother walks in and says: “So what are you drawing?” He replies: “I’m drawing a picture of God.” His mother says: “But no-one knows what God looks like.” And he responds: “Oh, but they will by the time I’m finished.” I would like to propose to you that if that little boy were to draw God, he would draw a picture of himself. He just needs to look in the mirror.

When I hear of the God in the Gospel and in our everyday narrative, I have always wondered who this God might be. Maybe it’s not something I’m meant to even think about, but I like to think about things like this. Just last week, I read that astronomers have revised their calculations on the number of galaxies in the universe, and it sure got me thinking. They used to maintain there were about 200 billion. 200 billion! Not 200,000, which would be a big enough number, or 2 million, but 200 billion. That’s a 2 with eleven zeroes after it. Now, our entire Milky Way, with at least 100 million stars, is just one of those 200 billion galaxies. But even more astonishingly, it has now been determined that there are ten times more galaxies than before. These astronomers have conjectured that there are about two trillion galaxies out there. Maybe that’s God.

Throughout theological history, there have been many different interpretations on who God might be. Every religion has its own perspective. Maybe every human being on Earth has his or her own. I’m becoming more and more convinced that while God is the very Universe itself, perhaps paradoxically, your God is deep within you. In essence, you are the God. Maybe this paradox between the Universe and you, was what William Blake was talking about when he wrote: To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand. And Eternity in an hour.

So how do you discover this inner ‘God’? I believe that you become this God when you see everything as if it is for the very first time, right in that present moment. It’s when you open your eyes and your soul to the wonder and joy of life. For an example, watch a small child listening to a seashell for the first time. “Wow”… she says, with a look of awe on her face, “listen to the waves. Isn’t that amazing?!” Children have already discovered their God. Somehow, in the daily rush of life, we sometimes forget this deep knowing.

Then what’s the adult version of this Wow? Perhaps it’s when you do an activity for the 100th time, and yet you see it for the 1st time. It’s when you walk through that door today for the 100th time, and yet today you still went wow. Look at this room. What a joy to be here. What amazing people. And in that precious moment, you find that you are present. You are present. You are present. And it’s right there that you connect with your inner God.

Ah, you might say. Life is more complicated than that. There is too much else that takes up my time. My body is aching. My head and heart are heavy. I’m just too tired. And to be present with everything as if it was for the first time would take too much effort. Perhaps. And yet, maybe it’s not a matter of enforced concentration. Perhaps instead, it’s the very opposite. Maybe the easier option is to just be in awe, in that present moment, with your God, and delighting in every single experience for the first time.

I once read a 29-year-old woman’s summation on her PhD. Her study had focused on time management, of all things. But rather than telling us to more effectively use technology to guide our lives, or challenging us to become more organized with endless diaries, her advice was simply this: Experience Awe in the everyday. As in, A-W-E. Open your eyes and ears and mind and soul just a little bit wider to what is taking place right here, right now. According to her, and I would concur, life then becomes more peaceful. And within that, in your natural state, you no longer become obsessed with a time-based completion of tasks. You instead resonate with the experience, and you actually accomplish more of what needs to be done.

There is even some scientific validity to this approach of being present with everything as if for the 1st time. I would contend that science, psychology and religion have often converged through human history. One example is the psychological state of what we call FLOW, in which you engage in a heightened experience. To me, this is the Godstate. Some refer to it as being in the ‘zone’. These events can sometimes be the peak experiences in your life, and yet they also can happen during normal everyday activities. This concept has been well-documented, especially by a writer called Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book called Flow: The Psychology Of Optimal Experience.

This Flow occurs when you become one with the experience. It is usually something that you can do very well, and yet it also has some degree of challenge. You lose track of time. Hours become minutes. Your brain chemicals are on overdrive, and create a glorious euphoria and peace in your body. Many people often say that they get out of their own way, and perform far beyond their normal capabilities. It is when you lose yourself in your beautiful music. It’s when you are mesmerized by the conversation with someone beside you. It’s when you fully open your eyes to the reality that you were lucky enough to wake up this morning, and that you get to go around for another day. It is when you find yourself deeply present…. and that’s when you become your God.

I have had a number of memorable Flow experiences, and they have involved everything from resonating with nature, to being in love, to being immersed in a piece of music, and often, when playing sport. I used to represent Queensland in squash, and in my most outstanding game ever, my whole career came together in a major semi-final against someone ranked much higher than me. I won easily; I felt invincible, and yet totally at peace. I clearly remember the endless flow of energy that I felt.  It’s as though it came from somewhere else. To this day, I still cannot fully explain the majesty and euphoria that I felt.

Where have you experienced your version of Flow? When you spent time finetuning a beautiful piece of machinery? When you looked at a seed in the palm of your hand, and you saw the forest? When you were writing a story, and the words came from somewhere else? Perhaps even when you met with another God here today? Whenever and however this Flow happened for you, in that quintessential present moment, I believe that you found your God.

Can I please offer a final point about your Godstate? This beautiful imperfect world of ours could be astonishing up ahead. But it will need each and every one of us to focus within, and connect with the God of our own amazing capabilities. Don’t believe the doomsayers and the powerbrokers who would rather exert a fear-based control from the outside-in. They too often seek to scare us into submission by generating fear about the future. That’s an outmoded control mechanism that has been used for 1000s of years, and we’re too good for that now. There are many amazing things happening right now around this glorious planet, and there are many more to come.

So could we really really become this God more often? Well, as the 1st reading said today, if we really want to. Just imagine the world we could create with our inner God, and then co-creating with those billions of other human inner Gods. But it will take every one of us, as we heard in the 2nd reading, to realize that our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?