You are god

What?! Blasphemy!

Hang on a sec. Before you cook my grits, let me explain this obvious click-baity title. When I say "god", you could ask "god of what?"

See, I believe there are two worlds that we occupy. We have the objective world that we all share. And we have the subjective world that's all ours. We tend to focus on the objective world and get caught up in the drama going on out there. But we often tend to neglect the subjective world. That one isn't as exciting. There isn't much going on. Or is there?

We have surprisingly very little control over the objective world. That's the realm of big G God, and we play a minute part in it. But we rule and reign our subjective world. We are little g god. In there, we get to choose who enters our heaven and who gets thrown into our hell.

Now, how do you play god? How do you know if you are a fair and just god? Some turn to philosophy, some to holy books, clergy or rituals. We all start with the programming we were given as children and build (and deconstruct) from there. For me, I'm interested in taking my cue from big G. Now how do I know what big G is like? Where is he/she/they found? Anywhere there is goodness being embodied, that's where big G is. In religious texts, philosophical papers and self-help books. A good lecture or sermon. An emotionally moving song. A hug from a friend. Anything that inspires you to be the best authentic version of yourself is where big G is found.

When I was super mad at church pastors, I was trying to take my role as little g up to the big leagues. I wanted to reform churches and fire all the pastors. I wanted to be big G and make things change. And all that led to was frustration and more anger.

I'm not sure what it was... maybe talking to Melissa after the millionth time about church, it finally sunk in. "Oh, I'm never gonna change this." And I stopped trying to. I decided that I would change focus and work on what I can control. The only kingdom I am lord and ruler over. My subjective world. I started looking for ways to grow my own spirituality without looking back at what churches were doing. I decided to do what nourished me. I got into meditation and breathwork. I started reading authors that inspired me. I kept up my therapy. Mostly, I looked for ways to forgive the pastor that hurt me.

Forgiveness isn't condoning what was done to you was right. It's removing the anger and vengefulness. Forgiveness is for you, not the other person. And it doesn't happen all at once. It's going to take me the rest of my life to work on forgiving the church. But I want to try. I want to get to the place where I can let them go in love, saying, "I can't be with you anymore, but I wish you all the best."

There's a scene in the movie The Shack that always brings tears to my eyes. The protagonist had a daughter who was kidnapped and murdered. After receiving a letter from God, he finds his way to a shack to work on healing his wounds, including forgiving the man who murdered his child. If you haven't seen the movie, I completely recommend it. So good. And how can you resist Octavia Spencer playing God the Father? Oooooo, the fundamentalists got maaaad.

So, none of us can be big G. I don't think there's a human good enough or smart enough to take on that role. We would do very well if we can look to be the best little g's we can be.

Here's the clip I was referring to.