I recently did a Google search for "gmail," and this is what came up:
At first, I didn't know what the rest of the story was here, but it made me think. Google serves all kinds of ritual functions: meaning-maker, answer-giver, organizer of information, confessor (you are what you Google?). But imagine searching "What Does God Want Me To Know" and getting an answer straight from Google's servers On High. That's one impressive algorithm. Who knew Google was that ambitious?
Most of our human religious traditions have traditions for trying to discern God's will or otherwise work to find ways of aligning our values and efforts what those we understand to be of God. Many of us long to know whatever it is God might want us to know. Of course, the practice of trying to discover these things is a process of the internal life, of spiritual formation, of learning to be still, to center, to pause, appreciate and listen. It's something best done in a community of spiritual pilgrims committed to hearing God's call together.
Modern expressions of festivals like Hanukkah and liturgical seasons like Advent stress these as times of gathering, of celebrating a lasting light in a world that's often dim. In this busy time, we might do best to consider the rhythms of tradition, the practices that bid us toward stillness, appreciation and hearing, of making ourselves instruments of God's peace. As the holidays approach and pass and the New Year looms, a countercultural call to stillness rather than the harried searches we often engage in seems worth observing.
As far as Googling the will of God? Some kind of glitch, I'm sure. For the good of our own spiritual formation, things just don't work that way. Traditions that seek to answer all of life's questions with cut and dried explanations from Holy Writ (What does God want me to know? Just Bible it!) start out with good intentions but finally rob us of the kind of vigorous religious life the heros of our holy books seem to have lived. Their approach demystifies the mystical, rationalizes the ineffable, formulizes and defangs the mysteries available to us only in faith.
By now, the Google glitch is fixed, but people of faith will always be tempted to turn their sacred texts, these precious nouns, into answer-giving, opinion-proving verbs. May God forgive us when forget the richness and the nuance of God's encounters with us, and, especially at Christmas, with the ways we often limit in our minds the extent to which God really longs for us to hear.
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But I also remember those in my "Jesus Freak" community of faith also praying about things like does God want me to go with this person? Does God want me to take some days off work to go to a retreat? Does God want me to keep dressing like a Hippie?
Some of us got so into this idea of "God's perfect will" that we thought about it for every decision. Does God want me to go to the store today or tomorrow? Does God want me to drive to the store on the main streets or take a different route? Does God want me to start with the produce or start with the dry goods as I walk through the store? Does God want me to buy the small mustard or the giant size? "I want to be right in the center of God's perfect will."
At some point in my spiritual journey I had a change of heart. I envisioned an encounter with God where I ask God what's God's perfect will for me.
Me: What do you want me to do, God?
God: Why do you keep asking me that? I want you to figure out what YOU want and do that. That's my "perfect" will for you. Just do it with love and justice.
I dare say God's encounters with Haitians might have them questioning his nuances. Maybe he ought to be asking them for forgiveness (especially at Christmas).
An omnipotent God longs for something? Surely this is creating, guessing or wish thinking the will of God??
Jesus said he came that we would have life to the full; abundant life [John 10:10] and that takes deep thought, wrestling with The Divine and then taking action.
"To think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and to anger others; and if you cannot tolerate this anger, you are wasting the time you spend thinking deeply. One of the rewards to deep thought is the hot glow of anger at discovering a wrong, but if anger is taboo, thought will starve to death."-Jules Henry
Religion divides. Spirit connects. A Greater Awakening is @
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