Not My God

The painting was of a doorway, an ornately carved wooden valance surrounding a wooden door, almost in black and white like a photograph. The door and casing were set into a plaster wall that had been depicted as flaking and rust-streaked from old nails driven into the stucco. In all, the effort was very nice.

The artist had painted his name proudly, legibly, in the lower corner as most artists do, but I could actually read it.

Centered over the door were Arabic words that were carved into the wood as well all the flourishes and hallmarks of Arabic, African...Muslim art. At first the sight of these words raised an eyebrow as I was with family waiting in the lobby of a huge Christian church to go in for my annual appearance on Easter. (Not true, I go all the time to ogle women.)

What I mean is, it didn't bother me of course, I can't read Arabic, but we were in NC, the "No you cannot hunt on Sunday" bible belt state!

Well a tad later, I was introduced to a man in black, and when I heard his name, I recognized it as the painter's name.

"You're the artist," I said.

"Yes. I saw the door doing Mission work in Africa, tiny island off the coast. blah blah blah..." Of course I asked him what the words over the door said.

"I am the Door," He said. Quickly he explained that he meant Jesus was the door. That he wanted people to see that on Easter (without a translation) because it was relevant, or so he thought.

I blabbed about the "Knock and the door will be opened," part of a verse I read long ago...he smiled.

He remarked how the image reminded him of Passover and the offering up of blood from a sheep to save the first born of the believers.

"I changed the door from what it originally said," he offered up.

"What did it say?" I asked, almost throwing out, "Kill whitey?" but biting my tongue.

"In the Name of God, The Compassionate, the Merciful," he said as I smiled on blithely.

"Why'd you change it?"

"Because it's from the Koran."

I blinked at him, and before I could ask, so? He said, "He's not my God."

Inside I shuddered, wanted to laugh and yell the obvious*, but I didn't...not the place or the time I reckoned.

And I thought, that's why I'm never at these places, these multi-million dollar expansive, invasive, and sometimes obscene monuments to religion. A friend once told me on facebook about a cathedral in Canada and how awesome it was (in the classical sense of the word--not how to describe a pizza--but awe inspiring) and i felt the same way about that, though I never even saw it in person.

I sat and thunk, they probably bulldozed a million trees or Indian burial grounds just to build it so people could convert the heathens of the land...or give them smallpox, whatever was easiest.

It's so cliche to say now, but my god doesn't need any of that...that gaudy display of wealth that some mistake for piety. For some, it was easy to put into words, and don't roll you eyes, but Robert Ruark, in The Horn of the Hunter, put down in a few words what he thought about his God:

"There was nobody around but me and a million animals and a thousand noises and the bright sun and the cool breeze and the shade from the big trees that made it cathedral--cool but a lot less musty and damp and full of century-old fear and trembling. I got to thinking that maybe this was what God had in mind when He invented religion, instead of all the don't and must-nots and sins and confessions of sins. I got to thinking about all the big churches I had been, including those in Rome, and how none of them could possibly compare with this place, with its brilliant birds and its soothing sounds of intense life all around and the feeling of ineffable peace and good will, so that not even man would be capable of behaving very badly in such a place. I thought that this was maybe the kind of place the Lord would come to sit in and get His strength back after a hard day's work trying to straighten out mankind. Certainly He wouldn't go inside a church. If the Lord was tired He would be uneasy in a church."


And if you saw, I talked about my god, in an awkward little note sometime back:


"Living things. Eternal combinations of a magic molecule sit high in my list.
Not just us, but all of “us.”
The same twisted ribbon makes a carrot, makes a cat, and makes a Mozart.
It, everlasting indeed, will make me a “ghost” and immortal.
I do worship life. I have seen how fragile, yet how unrelenting it is.


How? I can’t describe the collective feeling I have with our family.
To see a sunrise, and be there when colour comes back to the world.
To see life all around you, even in your home. And know, unseen, life is buzzing; marching, crawling, replicating…it blows my mind.

I hear it, I feel it. I am just here like the ant, the deer, the dog, the tree, the vine. I can’t explain. There is no ritual, only of being thrown in the pot with everything else. And everything dies. And everything eats. And there is no life without destroying life, and I am humbled by that, but not to tears."

So I think back on "Not my God," and wish maybe we could be happy not editing carvings in paintings, not bull-dozing trees and wiping off the green for the kingdom of heaven and not forsaking green soccer fields for a Jesus, or a Mohammad, or a Torah...