{"id":4049,"date":"2013-11-27T15:35:09","date_gmt":"2013-11-27T20:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4049"},"modified":"2013-11-27T16:53:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-27T21:53:00","slug":"when-we-talk-about-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4049","title":{"rendered":"When We Talk About God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rob Bell:\u00a0 What We Talk about When We Talk About God<\/a>
\nThis book was given to me by my recovering alcoholic brother, who has just done an extraordinary thing by turning his life completely around. \u00a0What he’s done is so inspirational and gives me hope that people can make radical changes in their lives.\u00a0 I started reading the book and couldn\u2019t put it down.\u00a0 I read it a second time, and this third time more slowly, copying out passages that really resonate for me.\u00a0 Most of what Bell says is something I\u2019ve already thought, but never put together the way he has.\u00a0 I\u2019ve agreed with these ideas intellectually for a long time, but it has been harder to actually experience them as real for me.\u00a0 I like what he says about \u201cchoosing\u201d to trust.\u00a0 Yes, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve done and work every day to make the experience more solid in my life.<\/p>\n

I disagree with what Bell has to say about science — I do not believe in the \u201cbig bang\u201d — AND I have a degree in Astronomy from an Ivy League College.\u00a0 And I disagree with what he has to say about anthropology, to me there\u2019s no question that the first god was female, and she reigned for a long time.\u00a0 But those things don\u2019t change his basic thesis.\u00a0 YES, I believe that \u201cgod\u201d is with<\/span> us (Bell\u2019s word), that \u201cgod\u201d is in all things, that \u201cgod\u201d is an unbelievably creative power, fountaining out galaxies and stars and planets and whales and hummingbirds, that how the universe created itself (for lack of better words, certainly call this process \u201cGod\u201d if you want) is amazing, beautiful, interconnected, and way beyond our power to understand.\u00a0 This is the piece I feel so wonderfully comfortable with \u2014 I used to be really concerned about which theory was \u201cright\u201d \u2014 now it doesn\u2019t matter any more.\u00a0 Watching the progress of science through many \u201cparadigm shifts<\/a>,\u201d I see that the newest answer is usually more integrative and beautiful than we could ever have imagined, and I trust that it continues that way.\u00a0 \u201cGod\u201d in the process of creating the universe created me, how could he, she, it or they not be for<\/span> me\u00a0 (Bell\u2019s word), not be supporting my best use of the being I am.\u00a0 \u201cGod\u201d ahead<\/span> of me (Bell\u2019s word) \u2014 YES, this god whose creativity I see in the universe, is reaching out through me to more and more connection and compassion.\u00a0 YES, there is a \u201cmoral arc\u201d of the universe and YES, it \u201cbends toward justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice\u201d was Martin Luther King\u2019s own succinct summation of sentiments echoing those of Theodore Parker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [the Hebrews] believed that this divine ruach<\/em> flows from God because \u2026\u00a0 the whole earth is God\u2019s, all of it infused with ruach<\/em>, crammed with restless, creative energy, full of unquenchable life force and unending divine vitality, undergirded and electrified by the God who continually renews the face of the earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Hebrews talked about the world \u2026\u00a0 what they talked about was all of this life and vitality and creativity and stars and rocks and talking and pasta and whales having a singular, common, creative, sustaining source \u2014 whom they called God \u2014 who powers and energizes and sustains it all.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 pp106-7<\/p>\n

\u201cChoosing to trust that this life matters and we\u2019re all connected and this is all headed somewhere has made my life way, way better.\u201d \u00a0 p125<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rob Bell:\u00a0 What We Talk about When We Talk About God This book was given to me by my recovering alcoholic brother, who has just done an extraordinary thing by turning his life completely around. \u00a0What he’s done is so … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-present-day","category-spirit","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}