What is God?

I was partly inspired to write this poem after reading this blogpost What is God? from Professor Jacob Needleman (he has also written a book with the same title which, as yet, I have not read), Professor of Philosophy at  San Francisco State University. Not only did I find his writing intellectually satisfying but it also had a profoundly calming effect on my solar plexus. (Since writing the above I have read the aforementioned book which I found both thought-provoking and uplifting. It has a measured tone and intelligence which is rare in most writing on this subject.)


What is God?

God is where
the ego has no voice,
where Conscience has an objectivity
beyond a culturally or religiously conditioned conscience,
where humility has confidence and innocence and insight
and belongs to everyone and no one.

God is where
every violent thought and feeling and movement
falls away into Silence,
where there is no argument nor explanation nor analysis.

God is where
words and numbers dance
exchanging clothes and meaning
in a Universe that both confuses and delights.

God is where
the labels that we attach to others and to ourselves
have no value
and where we people
are trying to Understand and to Be
in as much as our limitations will allow.

God is where
the thoughts, that turn around in circles and torment,
surrender and acknowledge their own impotence,
where reaction is replaced by reflection.

God is where
the personal and the abstract,
the allegorical and the actual
unite.



© Geoff Davis 2010