God is an Ecosystem

Yesterday morning there was a knock at the door. A benign looking man and woman stood outside clutching discreet binders and asked if I had a moment to talk. I’m sure you’ve already guessed where this is going. Yes, they had come to my door to proselytize. Instead of shooing them away, I stepped outside to politely address their presence at my home. They started the conversation with “Do you believe it’s possible to end war?” To which I replied, “No, I think it’s hardwired into humanity unfortunately.” One only has to look back through the annals of history to see that this is probably true… They conceded that we are living in trying times, a sentiment even diametrically opposed camps can probably agree on these days. I got to the point and asked them directly, “Is this a religious visit?” they replied "Yes, we are Jehovah’s Witnesses”.

Little did they know they had come to the door of someone who had been raised by a parent brought up in that church (or cult, it could easily be argued). My dad joined the army and left the church when he was a young man, and with that change, lost everyone dear to him. They all turned their backs on him. Stationed in Germany, there were no packages filled with cookies, no letters from home, no contact at all.

Contrary to common understanding, Jehovah’s Witnesses are not pacifists although they shun those who join the military. They are conscientious objectors - not because they are opposed to violence, they are just opposed to it on the behalf of governments. They are uncomfortably enthusiastic however, for violence in the name of God. I can tell you this from experience because, you see, my Grandma Martha made her way back into my dad’s life years later and was a presence in my early childhood. Until the day she wasn’t.

During my early childhood my grandma filled my head with horrifying stories of the coming armageddon and warned there were demons all around that wanted my soul. She scared the shit out of me! There was a while there that I really thought I had to fend off demons everywhere and they could easily be hiding in my bedroom. She would often tell stories of satanic toys with glowing red eyes that resisted destruction. I think she really honed in on me because I was a sensitive kid, prone toward the spiritual side of life from a very young age. She would take me with her to the local Kingdom Hall when she was in town where I would hear similar stories - so I do know it wasn’t just the twisted rantings of one old lady.

One day years later in my early adolescence I heard a heated conversation going on behind closed doors. It was my dad telling my grandma in no uncertain terms that if she didn’t back off of me she wouldn’t be welcome in our home any longer. At that point, and for all of my formative years, my dad was pretty opposed to organized religion in general. Years later, in his increasing eccentricity, he embraced Catholicism, along with candy making, opera and the study of Egyptology, among other things. My mom while identifying somewhat with the strict Christianity she was brought up with, didn’t align herself with any religion and we never attended church. To my parents credit, they freely let us explore the spiritual world and I would attend churches across the spectrum with different friend’s families just to see what they were all about. I’m a perpetually curious person so I had to find out what was going on behind those closed doors.

That day of the heated conversation was the last day I saw my grandma. She left in tears and we never heard from her again. Many years later when my dad died, my sister and I tried to reach her to relay the news and she wouldn’t take our calls. We had to call the Kingdom Hall where she lived and give a stranger the message her son had died in hopes that they would let her know.

I think it was not long after my grandma departed that day that our parents gave my sister and me a big pictorial book by Joseph Campbell called “The Mythic Image”. I loved that book. It exposed me to religious beliefs, mythologies, and the relationship between dreams and myth from cultures all around the world. I must have spent countless hours with it over the years and have no doubt about it’s influence on me.

But outside of the influence of anybody else’s words or anybody else’s ideas was my own relationship with the natural world. A relationship that started before I could even read. If I am to put a label on my spirituality now, I would call myself an animist. Growing up in rural Northern California in the 70s and 80s I had a lot of freedom and alone time. Just me and the trees and the rocks and the jackrabbits…I would head out on my pony into the apple orchards and through the redwoods and get to know the place. I had friends I still think of to this day that others would consider to be inanimate. But I felt their spirit and I sometimes even saw it shining around them. Some of you might read this and think I’m crazy and that’s ok with me. I’m not trying to convince you but this is my experience of the world.

In school I was a terrible student ( I have a really hard time concentrating on things that don’t interest me ) and I only excelled at English literature, art and biological sciences. Through science I started to understand that the energetic connectivity I had felt in the world from a very young age was also “real” in the eyes of academia. While they offered no spiritual lens on the subject, for me the two concepts seamlessly intertwined.

How could these complex relationships of nature, with each element reliant on the next in massive, intricate, mutually beneficial networks not be enough? It seemed so obvious to me and it still does. God is an ecosystem.

Why would we force God into a singular entity who parcels out judgements and punishments when we can gaze at the sea and let her waters absorb our grief? When we can watch for the patterns that tell our human stories? When we have nature to reflect back to us that which is most sacred inside of ourselves? How can we feel that oneness and not know that as God?

The sun rises in the east every morning and sets in the west. At night, ancient light shines down on us all, a blanket of stars.

Nature shows me how to be patient. Nature shows me how to shed my skin and renew myself. Nature teaches me how to nurture and tend. Nature teaches me how to love. Nature is God.

I told to this to the friendly visitors at my door, in so many words, that I respect their right to believe how they want, and sent them on their way.

I’m thankful I was given the chance to explore and feel out the world. To be a wild kid. At home amongst the water and trees. Who now thrills at the sounds of the wolves howling in the woods and lets wild chipmunks sit at my feet. Who hear’s God’s voice in the creaking Birch trees. That’s enough for me.