All names, no name

Stepping through the rhythm of my spiritual life over the past xxx years (it could almost go back to when I had my first awakening to the reality of Spirit) – the overwhelming experience of God, interpretation of that experience through the lens of whatever thought system/theology I happen to be convinced by at the time, followed by disillusionment and change to a new thought system. This, repeated over and over, gradually working my way through a thousand ways to be disillusioned with religion.

More recently, this year to be exact, there’s been a sense that God has been doing the disillusioning – not that I’ve been uncovering things to be disillusioned with. I’ve yearned for a religion to call my own, YEARNED! – but whenever I’ve begun to settle into a way of thinking, a way of relating to God through a theological system – God’s pulled the rug out from under me and pushed me back into uncertainty. I’d have settled long ago for Christianity, or Evolutionary Spirituality or something. But God gave me the gift of being gay, of being smart, of restlessness, of not settling…most religions have a hard time with both of those qualities.

A few months ago at Trinity Baptist – praying with three other men and experiencing real communication with God, intimacy with God, I also had the certainty that those men could not accept me as part of their fellowship because of my sexuality. God pulled that rug out. Finally, I get to see that Christianity is not God’s religion. He will not destroy me, will not send me to hell for not believing THAT thing rather than another thing. Remember His radical grace.

And now with the exploration of Tantra – how teasing, how captivating it is to come to God through my body. As Ram Dass says, it’s sticky. I need to take care that I don’t get stuck.

That first experience in CBE and the big draw – surrendering to God in the ecstasy and having the blissful experience of oneness – when I heard the words, “I am all names and I have no name. I am all things, and I am no-thing.” There, at that point to have the certainty that in this body, in manifestation, there is only the experience of multiplicity and that God, being One, makes Himself known in multiplicity but always leading back to Oneness.

The men I’m getting to know – well, they seem to yearn only for the intimacy of touch and the intimacy and comfort of being with their tribe. Fair enough, I yearn for that too [and who knows what they really yearn for, do they know what I want?]. But already I know that those are empty things, touch falters and withdraws, bodies die, tribes scatter or solidify into inflexible structures that kill the spirit, and then the tribes too die.

I no longer yearn for a religion to call my own, a theology to be certain of, something solid to stand on. I yearn to be with God. Breathe…and I’m with Him.
Since CBE I’ve been transfixed by the idea that I need to stop all theological speculation – of course, it’s just like me to take an all or nothing approach – so put the theology books down, leave the philosophy books on the shelf. The simple joy of chanting the names of God, or waiting for Him in silent surrender. This is all I want.