For as long as there have been humans, there have been people who debate the existence of a God or Spirit of the Universe. Some have asserted that God is merely an opiate for the masses (thank you Karl Marx) serving as a crutch for those who live life as sheep. Others have asserted that God (S/He) has always been, pointing to the creation of the Universe as evidence that there is a Source for all of Life, and thus is indisputabe. Consequently, whether or not humans deign to acknowledge God’s existence is immaterial to the reality or truth that Spirit exists.
Regardless of which end of the spectrum you may fall, I’m not proposing to add to the debate (others are far more eloquent in providing ‘proof’ then I can present in this short blog). What is more interesting to me is how man (hu-mans) are prone to be meaning-makers. We are prone to draw conclusions, to take our experience (or our thoughts) and create meaning and build our life choices upon these outcomes.
This ‘meaning-making’ can be exciting, uplifting, and even rewarding – the creation of hope, engaging in the power of positive thinking, or cheering on others to make changes or improve the quality of their life. But truthfully most of us don’t possess the innate ability to default to seeing the silver-lining (no matter what), instead our ‘meaning-making’ capacity will drift toward snatching failure out of the jaws of success.
So how do we realign ourselves to a resonance that lifts us up, rather than crashing into the rocks? Here we might apply the saying: “I don’t know if there is a God or isn’t a God, but on the off chance that there is one – I’ll hedge my bets and live my life as though there is a benevolent force for good.” Barring that, we can turn to each other, draw on the strength and power of kindness, love, compassion, generosity, and affirming the essential goodness (even if it is deeply hidden) to lift each other out of the mire, to offer a helping hand, word of encouragement, a smile … paying it forward, reflecting the silver-lining when we can find our own.