Our Perception of God

Recently I heard something interesting about our perception of God. I can't remember exactly who came up with this concept, but... it was either a theologian or a psychologist (meaning, I didn't just overhear a couple of people pontificating at the bus stop. Not that good, valid ideas can't come out of that scenario too, of course).

The concept was that our perception of God comes from the primary caregiver we had as a child. They were our first exposure to authority, to someone who cared for us (or was supposed to care for us), to someone who loved us (or, again, was supposed to love us).

This made me think about all the different types of caregivers people have while they are children, and the ramifications of these different caregivers on our perception of God. What if we had a caregiver who neglected us? They may have been the primary caregiver, but maybe they left us alone for hours, days at a time, and weren't really present in our lives. Maybe we would think that God was absent and wasn't really there when we needed Him. Or what if our caregiver was harsh or strict with our behavior, or unforgiving of our shortcomings, and seemed to have conditions placed upon their love for us? In the bible we read that God is forgiving and loves us unconditionally, but I wondered if that would not be the way we would perceive Him if we had not yet experienced unconditional love from our parents. However, if our parents were warm, gentle, forgiving, tender, affectionate, and always there when we needed them, we may have a similar view of God. And if we find that we had some negative experiences with our primary caregiver, but yet feel that God has a different identity or role in our life, I wonder how much effort it would take to change our view of Him into the one that is presented in the bible.

As I thought about this more, I realized that I had another perception of God, separate from the aspect of the primary caregiver. I realized that I have always considered God as a male, having a masculine identity as opposed to having no gender, or being neutral, or being feminine. In my life, I connect emotionally, socially, and intellectually with both males and females, but tend to have connections with more females than males. Maybe this is normal for all females, but I always attributed it to the fact that I am gay. I have a bunch of female friends, I have a bunch of male friends, but if I were to split it up in percentages, my female friends constitute 90% of my friendships. I was wondering today why I have always associated God with the male gender. Maybe just because He is almost always represented in the bible with the male pronoun, but even as I realize that now, intellectually, He still seems like a male in my mind. I wonder if anything would change in my relationship with Him if I started focusing on him being gender neutral or having a feminine identity.

These are all kind of half-thought out ideas. If you've made it this far, thanks. :) I'll have to develop this a bit further.

The World is Round

Had a conversation today with someone that was life-changing. I was asked what I was like as a child, and I immediately thought of the hours upon hours of home videos my grandparents have in their house of me just... talking. At 7, 8, 9 years old, I would just sit in front of the camera and talk animatedly, sing songs, interview my 2-year-old brother as if I were a talk show host... just anything I could think of so I could be a chatterbox and talk non-stop for hours at a time.

 

Then I started wondering what happened to that animated person, that girl who would sing off-key and laugh and make up stories, who would tell jokes to the camera woman (hi grandma!) and pull my brother away from his G.I. Joes so I could re-create our own personal Oprah Winfrey show. (I know, the resemblance is striking.) There was such life there, such innocence and purity, and so much energy that kids are known to have. And I ran with that energy; I was off the walls. No wonder my parents signed me up for every available sport; they probably just wanted me to expend enough energy so I would stop talking for half a minute.

 

As I continued in conversation with the person who asked about my young self, I realized I had held onto something for 20 years or so that I had never expressed out loud. It was a negative event in my life, something that someone said to me that really hurt me. Sure, I'd written it down, I'd journaled about it and probably even written about it to a friend, but I had never been able to say it out loud. There was so much shame involved, and embarrassment, and pain, and for these reasons I could never audibly say it. But today, in this conversation, she urged me to say it. Because in saying it, she explained, I could shed light on the lie that it was and expose it to daylight, expose it to the truth.

 

For example, let's say that when you're 5 years old your uncle tells you that the world is flat. You are just in kindergarten and so you believe them, not having any other influences or facts. They repeat this fact to you for years, and even when you learn in school that the earth is round, you always sort of question if it really is round. In the back of your head, you think, "But my uncle said the earth was flat, and he seemed so certain, so..." And because of these differences of opinion, you never voice what your uncle said. Maybe you're afraid he was wrong and you don't want to expose his ignorance. Maybe you are embarrassed that you are related to someone who believes something so ludicrous. Maybe you're afraid the rest of the world is wrong, and if you tell people what your uncle said, they will suddenly realize he was right, and it will cause your whole world (literally and figuratively) to come crashing down. You don't want to believe your uncle, but why would he tell you that over and over again if it wasn't true?

 

So there I was today, being encouraged to voice something and expose the lie for what it was. After thinking about it for 5 minutes, feeling my heart beat faster, my palms become sweaty, feeling a bit dizzy, seeing spots, and literally thinking I was going to fall out of my chair, I just said it. And guess what? The world didn't come crashing down. I repeated something that someone had said that I'd been hanging onto for 20 years, and as soon as I said it, I realized how ridiculous it was. It didn't even make sense. When shown the light of day, its validity and power over me vanished. And it vanished itself. And at 31 years old, I could have felt sheepish for having such a physical reaction to saying a few words, but when I put myself in the shoes of my childhood Katie, the fear and embarrassment suddenly didn't seem so silly.

 

And then I immediately felt exhausted and wanted to cry, and realized that when you hang on to something for 20 years and longer, it can be an exhausting process to finally release it. But you also feel so much lighter.

 

 

Learning a lot on my journey. These 10 days have been, hands down, the hardest days of my life, but they have also been some of the best, most enlightened, exciting, and most inspired days as well. Funny how sometimes those go together. 

I'm realizing that it's okay to be human, it's okay to make mistakes, and it's okay to try again and again on some things. We are all here to learn, to love, to live in the best way that we can, but we also have the obligation to continue to improve ourselves and our situations. So far this journey has been a wonderful time away, as it takes me away from all the things I use to not think about the really important things, the things in my life that need attention: God, reflection, prayer, mindfulness, bringing more gratitude into my life, getting more tuned in to my emotions and why I do things, increasing my joy, thinking about the ways I want to be better as a person and bring more energy to my life and my relationships. It's amazing what one can do inwardly when they decide to take some time away from the things that tend to numb our emotions. For me, that's a variety of things, but mostly an overabundance of sugar, my phone, and Facebook, all of which have been non-existent or almost non-existent these past 10 days. I guess that's what the journey was all about for me, just going somewhere or getting to a place where I could spend time away from the emotion-numbers, have to face my feelings and face my life. And today was definitely a day of facing my fears, feeling the emotions, and bringing some truth to a place that needs healing. Because the world is in fact round, and it's about time I cleared up that major misunderstanding.