This isn’t exactly an “image of God” post. However, it is definitely a “Life and Faith” one. I hope that you will indulge me.

There are times when it’s easier to bury oneself in the technical minutiae of life rather than contemplate the big questions; a fact not restricted to those of us who dabble, of spend our lives, in matters spiritual.

I was listening to comedienne Elvira Kurt today when she commented that we seem to spend our lives busily fussing over our to-do lists largely so that we won’t have to address the fact that we don’t have a clue as to what’s going on. Kurt of course, said this in a way that was much funnier than I have and probably more profound as well.

But I realized that over the last few days I’ve been doing much the same thing. Not with a to-do list but with the technical minutiae of maintaining these websites. There are so many options available – “plugins” they’re called – that add functionality. I find myself thinking “Oh, readers would enjoy being able to …” and then off I go. You, dear reader, may indeed enjoy being able to ….  

But if I’m doing this right, one of the primary things you enjoy is reading these articles and occasionally commenting on them (ooh, ooh, there’s a terriffic plugin comment tool that lets people add pictures and quote previous comments!!)

I found Kurt rather refreshing in her frankness. Life is often too big, too complicated, and too tangled to make sense. And since we were, most of us, raised with the idea that everything should make sense, we try to avoid looking at the evidence to the contrary.

I suppose that’s one reason that some people like the “God’s in his heaven; All’s right with the world” view of things. It seems easier to understand a world with a deity ensconced comfortably somewhere far away pulling the strings to make the world dance.

As we all know all too well however, the world doesn’t exactly work that way. If it did, we would have no need to worry about pollution, or global warming, or any of a hundred other natural and man-made disasters.

Browning knew it as well, believing in an immanent deity who was intimately part of Creation. (heck, maybe there really isn’t anything new under the sun).  Its a view that is much more comforting to me during my current personal challenges. Knowing with a certainty that is unshakeable that “God” is going through this with me, intimately part of the experience as God is intimately part of me and each of us, makes this much more “logical” for me.

Knowing that “God” doesn’t reach out and pick people to “save” or “suffer” in some sort of random religious shooting gallery doesn’t make God less real to me. On the contrary, it makes God much more accessible, much more awesome, and yes, much more “God-like.”

So I’m not going to try to avoid the fact that I don’t always know what’s going on at the deep philosophical level. I don’t need to know all of the reasons “why”. I just need to know that God is part of the package.

And I do.