The Stick Figure

by William Marshall

I used to go to church. I don’t anymore; not because I don’t believe in God, but because the picture my church painted of God was too small. That wasn’t my thinking when I quit the Church forty years ago, but it is my thinking now.

Back then, science was largely responsible for my splitting, what with the idea that everything arises from material causes. It made sense to a sixteen-year-old mind steeped in the scientific tradition. Who needed the superstition of a God when we all knew that the universe was nothing more than a well-oiled machine? Every effect has a precipitating cause, the belief goes. But, the thought of God, like a genetic code, remained in the deepest recesses of who I am. I guess it was a little like a maple tree going into hibernation for the winter.

Strangely enough it was science, specifically quantum physics, that brought the Spring and the maple tree back to life. In the quantum world of Lilliput things don’t work anything like they do in our large world of Brobdingnag. Trust me.

The problem I had and still have with our conception of God is that he really is too small — only slightly larger than us — and his behavior at times is completely incomprehensible. We can all think of examples, the Holocaust being one. But, consider this more mundane example. I have four children that I hope will eventually grow up in their own image, not mine. I don’t require their worship or their adoration. I don’t require their appreciation for the things I do for them, although I get it. I don’t even require that they love me, although I know they do, each in their own way. Who among us would condemn their children to a lifetime of imprisonment for not loving us enough or for breaking one of our rules? Caligula, Nero and Sadam Hussein are sure bets. But God?

Individually we all have a relatively well-formed idea of what God is, but we have even stronger ideas of what God requires of us. Unfortunately, these beliefs have kept us at each other’s throats for millennia. Two beliefs seem most to work against us. They are the beliefs in Separation — God is there and I am here  — and Perfection — God is good and perfect, while I am fallen and damaged. That we hold God to be separate from his creations forces us to see ourselves as separate from all that we perceive. We see ourselves as little more than a defective product, a creation gone bad, so to speak, rather than individual manifestations of a divine unity that has unfolded itself as the universe.

My toe, although not the entirety of me, is still a part of me. My DNA is as complete in my toe as it is anywhere else in my body. The loss of my toe diminishes the entirety of me. It is easier to see this connection because the toe is attached to the body, the body being a unity. But, it is no big feat for a bigger God than the one we know to make itself into all that there is. Boundaries disappear the closer you look. Boundaries are an artificial construct based on the limitations of our senses. When you consider yourself a toe in the metaphorical body of God, then losing a finger takes on a completely different meaning. It’s all God. Followed to its logical conclusion the elimination of any of us diminishes all of us.

The idea of perfection, “Be perfect as I am perfect,” accentuates differences. Is my toe any more perfect than my finger? Is your nose any more perfect than my nose? Is your way of being any less perfect than mine? If there is no separation and everything is God rather than a creation of God, then it follows that everything is already perfect, the good, the bad and the ugly. When a Muslim kills a Jew; when an American kills an Iraqi, and when one of us takes his own life, ultimately it is because of a belief in separation, perfection and right and wrong. I am alone and I am not enough. The ideas of separation and perfection allows us to say, “we are right and you are wrong,” “we are good and you are bad,” and “life is not worth living.” The ideas of separation and perfection lead to non-acceptance of others and more importantly, non-acceptance of self.

If there is no separation then there is nothing to be redeemed. If there is already perfection then we are — all of us — already redeemed. If everything that is — you, me, them, us, a tree, a duck, a stick — is not a creation as from a magic wand or Godlike finger, but rather an unfolding of God; then our current concept of God is equivalent to a child’s drawing of a stick figure. To conceive of a more complex God is to conceive of a more complex us. When I can see the eyes of God looking back at me when I stare at your face then I will know that your face is already perfect. I will accept you as you are. I may not like you, but I will not judge you. You are already perfect and a part of who I am, and life is infinitely more than we have imagined.