An Act Of God, or, Why Do Sh*tty Things Happen?

When tragedy happens, people will say it is an act of God. Or when there is a stroke of grace.

“It’s an act of God.”

Well, it’s ALL God. 

No, no - not some man on a cloud. Not some thing that’s separate from you. It’s all God. And so it’s all an act of God.  

You washing the dishes. An act of God. 

The flower opening its petals. An act of God. 

The dog shitting on the sidewalk. You guessed it.

Still with me? [cue sound of a few doors slamming]

We could just call it Source.

And we are not separate from Source. (Still here? Good.)

So God isn’t some occasional happening. It’s all one happening. This happening is God. The things that happen, the space in which it happens. You and your coffee breath. It’s all God.

Source. Truth. The Tao. The many names. But they are just names, a short map merely pointing to Reality.  

In all its wretchedness and glory, life makes sense. It is…its very isness. On a fundamental level, I am deeply at peace. But, also, my heart breaks for the world; for people, for animals, for the planet, for you and me.

The paradox is real, my friends.

I’ll share what I directly experience, which doesn’t seem to be all that different from what the Eastern or mystical spiritual traditions have pointed to for centuries.

Deep in my bones I am not conflicted about how there is darkness, pain, and cruelty alongside such breathtaking beauty, wonder, love, and grace. I can’t tell you exactly why and dissect it like a Vedic scholar or even make you feel better about it. I live in paradox, and over time, my lived experience of life is felt and known as more and more paradoxical. There is no conflict in these seeming opposites.

Sure it doesn’t always feel pleasant. But it is what is here. And I can’t help but be with what is, and to know I am what is — all of it.

And so are you. 

You are not separate from life. There can be a contraction away from life when in pain, in order to separate from the pain. But the pain is in the separation, my friend. Not in the pain itself.

You are life itself, and so can hold for all of it.

Really.

Awakening offers this clarity, this willingness without will; this spontaneous action with no do-er. Awakening also reveals a rawness. There is experiencing without an experiencer. No filter with which to assign a hierarchy of better or worse, but a sensing into what is happening now…and now..and now…and…you get it.

And within this, I still don’t like jicama. Sorry.

(Honestly, I am delighted by my dislikes almost as much as my likes. But I’m not eating that thing.)

In this world of apparent duality, there is tension between opposites. Ultimately it’s all arising out of and is the same no-thingness-thing. The force of this tension continues to create seeming polarities. And they’re felt. They are experienced. They create distinctions, like shades and shapes of Godness.

So the greed and hatred that exists, that is you, Because there is just one thing existing. The love and kindness and compassion that exists, that is you.

Love may be closer to the Source of All That Is, but the appearance of the opposite of love and kindness and compassion is also coming from Source. Asleep to its nature perhaps, but also Source. Also God. Also Reality. 

Your screw ups, my screw ups. Your human learnings, my human learnings. All one thing. Our messiness. Our sacredness. One damn thing. “Same taste”, as they say.

There is cause and effect to be considered - as a collective, and also as individual soul streams living these unique lives. Some might call that karma, a misunderstood concept here in the West, as punishment. But really it’s the momentum of past action, thought, and impulse playing out. Collective karma is a bitch! I’d say we are all feeling it these days, especially the collective karma here in the United States.

Everything being The One Thing doesn’t mean we stay silent or that we don’t take action when cruelty happens or tragedy strikes by saying “well it’s all one thing, and it’s all perfect.” 

When Oneness is realized and your Being is awake to itself - breathing it, directly experiencing it - the call to wholeness naturally and spontaneously arises. It’s a call to contribute to expressed wholeness on this dense plane of existence.

We are perfecting this game of humanity in the word of form.

And if our true nature emits compassion and love as its initial movement into the world, then we can bet that the world of form actually wants to embody fuller and richer depths of compassion and love.

So speak up, stand up, love your neighbor, help out, and do your best to not be an asshole. 

And we can pray to That which is vaster than our personality and humanity, even though we are also That.

We are Reality, God, Source, That. And we simultaneously exist within That. So when we pray to God for a lessening of suffering, a greater holding of compassion, a deeper respect for each other and the planet and her creatures, the deepest part of our Being as a collective hears it. And responds. Because we are the collective.

And that is an act of God, to God, for God.

But hey, I don’t claim to have all the answers. I mean I’m not God. But yet…well, you get it.

No doubt the great Mystery will continue to reveal Itself in a multiplicity of ways as time goes on. But for now here’s what I got.

May you connect to that which is unshakable within. Big love to you all.