III. Please Let There Be God

Please let there be God. Not a god, because I don't want the abstractions from some men's philosophical calculus. And not that some gods are bad, I just have read those stories and don't want the same conclusion they come to. Please don't let there be just nirvana, an extinguishment of self. It's not that I love self, Christians are taught to deny it, but we eventually long for a redeemed self. Without self, I have nothing to give to God in worship. We long to be freed of the weight and gravity of the self, not the being of the self. So please no nirvana.

And please no paradise, please no endless myriads of virgins. I have lived my life with enough lust for women, I would rather the afterlife not contain more raging fire that will only leave me colder. Having burnt myself in this life, I would not lie long in the arms of 40 virgins before I was an eternal misery rather than a temporal one. The lusty eyes of more women will just make me discontent and more selfish. Please no paradise and no god of that.

And please no endless ladder of karma. I cannot vouch for my future life, that he, she, or it will do any better than this poor creature I am now. I know I can't trust myself from one day to another to get things right, much less one life to another. And how am I to distinguish the unintended consequences of even my good actions? Will what in one life grows in the dung in another life really be joined to god? Please no karma.

And please no seeking the divine in that which is within. Every look deeper into this well is a look deeper into a selfish tangle of soul. If I am to find god within, he was easy to find, yet he is not the god I want ruling the universe. This god is no good, and even if he is, he has no power to do the good. If what I am left with is what is within, as beautiful as it can be when properly framed, I am left with something that ought never be worshiped. Please no god within.

And please not nothing. Please don't tell me there is nothing beyond what is. Please don't tell me if I saw through the universe I'd only see a void. Please don't tell me I am the sum of all my material parts and nothing else. Please don't tell me that in the vast scope of REALITY that to kill is the same as to heal. Don't leave me in a hell for my heaven. Don't tell me the events and loves and hates of my life all extinguish in a blip of nothingness the moment I die. Please no nothing.

Please tell me there is God. The One, and the Three. The found of all goodness. The wellspring of all wisdom. He who is, and was, and is to be. He who before whom there was none, and after whom there will not be another. He who is Holy. Wise. Just. Merciful. The flashpoint of all glory and beauty and truth within the universe. The One from who earth and sky flee away. Please let there be God.