OM 

This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." (Matthew 6: 9-13) 

A sacred syllable of three phonemes: aa uu mm, representing creation, duration, and destruction of the universe.

In Vedic and related traditions OM is used to introduce readings of scripture and kataphatic prayer (kata: around, about, into, phatic: words). In the West OM is perhaps best known as a sound technique for apophatic meditation (apo: without, phatic: words).

For me prayer is praise and thanksgiving - especially through music - and conversation: story-telling, dialogue, jokes, dialectic...

A friend articulated his complaints and questions. I responded.

I have not responded so much to my friend as to the images his words prompted in my own mind.

I regret having come to the end of his complaints. I hope he has more.

I honor and sometimes envy those with apophatic discipline. Silence is not my strength.

I honor and sometimes envy those with a truly kataphatic discipline.  These are scholars with deep knowledge that folds into itself.  I am not a scholar.

Rather than apophatic or kataphatic, I seek a logophatic relationship with That Which Exists, where the images, words, and concepts emerge through me in a coherent living narrative.

Today in many churches the scripture assigned is 1 John 4: 7-21: "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."

These words conform with my understanding of reality.  They do not yet emerge through me.  But this is the destination to which I aspire.

If God did exist why should we believe in him? 

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand — when I awake, I am still with you... Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139)

On a cloudy day I entered the unfamiliar church, knelt, prayed, then scanned the ornate late 19th Century interior.

The high altar stood in a tall, narrow chancel consisting mostly of stained glass.  Various saints ascended toward a sparkling throne from which Father, Son, and Holy Spirit presided. It was a miniature Saint-Chapelle. Seven brass sanctuary lamps flickered in the dimness.  There was a slight fragrance of sandalwood, frankincense, I may have imagined the myrrh.

As the organ prelude began - maybe the Bach Fugue in C minor - I had a slightly dizzy sense.  The sanctuary lamps seemed to pulse, then they were moving toward me.

I rubbed my eyes, but if anything the lamps were closer, brighter, more vivid.

Some interior voice suggested, "You are having a mystical experience."  It had been awhile.  I was not displeased, not afraid, but I was, probably, very erect in my seat and wide-eyed.

Then I realized: the clouds had begun to clear. The chancel was oscillating between light and darkness. Each strobe of light extended my depth of vision, each cloudy dimness reduced the same in rapid progression.

I sat back with a deep sigh, both relieved and disappointed.

We are mostly creatures of sensory experience.  What we perceive is what we believe.  We are innate empiricists.

We can and ought to discipline our perceiving: extending, sharpening, testing and confirming.  We can and ought avail ourselves of the perception of others: considering, questioning, attempting to recreate, confirming or denying.

Because I have experienced God, I believe in God.

A universe with a god is a very different place than a universe without one. 

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I find no rest. (Psalm 22:1-2) 

According to Matthew's gospel the first words of this psalm were the last words of Jesus on the cross.

God is God.

The universe is the universe.  Or, I expect, the universes are the universes.

In each universe the preconditions are set, the potential in place.  Action unfolds. Some potentialities emerge, others recede.  I understand God is the ultimate cause.  The immediate causes are various and variable.

In this universe - I can imagine different realities - God's reign is a matter of our choice.

If we are in an open and vulnerable relationship with God, if we make ourselves knowable to God, our choices will be different than outside such a relationship.

From such choices unfold very different potentialities.

What's the difference between an unknowable god and no god? 

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth — people getting no sleep day or night — then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it. (Ecclesiastes 8:15-17)

I have been married for over thirty years. We have lived together longer than we were alive separately.

We remain in many ways unknown to each other.

There are aspects of my wife's orientation, motivation, and essential identity that are mysterious to me.

She surprises me.  She does not conform to my prior experience, my predictions, my "theory" of her.

She would surely say the same of me.

Is she knowable?  Am I knowable?

To some degree, yes.  I seem to know my wife more fully than I know our children, who I could observe from their beginning  and had some role in shaping.

I am in relationship with these barely known others. I am susceptible to influences - welcome and unwelcome - emerging from the otherness of my wife and children... and friends, colleagues, and total strangers.

Perhaps the critical issue is not that I should know them, but that I should endeavor in my relationship with them to be as open, vulnerable, and knowable as I can make myself.

Why does it matter whether god exists or not? 

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers...“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you... (John 15:5-6,9-12)

Each day I try to deepen my relationship with God, everyday I seek to draw more from the vine.

Each day I seek to become more like Jesus.

Each day I try to more closely align my living with fundamental principles of reality.

Each day I seek to become more fully at home in the universe.

If I had a mind for math, I might study equations. Instead I study parables, poetry, and song.

I perceive the vine in Newton, Darwin, Heisenberg, Lemaître, Schrödinger, and more. 

But as green and fruitful as science has been, I vaguely discern something even more verdant.

Last year my still-young grape vine produced its first significant fruit. But just before the grapes could be eaten, they withered. While fruit, branch, and vine remained connected something was missing.

I see and celebrate the connections made by science. I remain alert for what may be missing.

Our time is distinguished by wonderful achievements in the fields of scientific understanding and the technical application of those insights. Who would not be cheered by this? But let us not forget that human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind. What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy in living. (Albert Einstein, 1937)

The term god is too imprecise to think about. 

Praise the LORD, my soul. LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. (Psalm 104:1-4)

I am seldom - perhaps never - precise.

My home is full of slightly crooked shelves.

I perpetually neglect financial detail.

My writing wanders, rather than show I mostly tell.

I am a dilettante.

Perhaps this is why I enjoy thinking about God.

If god made the world, who made god?

א בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ  

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

ב וְהָאָרֶץ, הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ, וְחֹשֶׁךְ, עַל-פְּנֵי תְהוֹם; וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם 

Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

 ג וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, יְהִי אוֹר; וַיְהִי-אוֹר  

And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light.

 ד וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאוֹר, כִּי-טוֹב; וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים, בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ 

And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.

My own very loose translation:

Time began when God created space.
This planet's potential was chaotic, open, confused; God's conceiving framed a great flowing.
God conceived light.  There was light.
God perceived light and was glad.  God differentiated light from confusion.

With Augustine of Hippo I understand God is beyond time and space.

God is That Which Exists: one reasonable translation of Jehovah.

God is fundamental reality, source of creation, ultimate origin of cosmic laws.

With deists I understand God created chaos, complexity, emergence, order...

Unlike most deists I understand God is glad to be surprised.

God conceived light, but was uncertain if light would be good or bad until perceiving it.  God was glad it was good.  God might have been otherwise.

God set the preconditions for light, but light continues to delight (or not) in exploring and unfolding these divine preconditions.

With many I understand that God continues to be interested in the course of creation.

Unlike many I understand God remains outside time and space, God does not intervene directly to guide the unfolding of creation.

But my God is engaged with creation: ready to respond, to inspire, to participate in the choices I make - and each of us make - regarding preconditions and potential.