I was young. Perhaps five or six years old. My parents and other grown-ups were politely attentive on a stifling Sunday afternoon in Africa, drinking tea and talking about God. I was supposed to be playing with the other children, but preferred the dark coolness inside.
“Go and play with the others” says Mother, without conviction. I ignore her and continue daydreaming, drowsy, like Beatrix Potter’s flopsy bunnies after eating too much lettuce. Ignoring the stiff formality of tea after church, and the sounds of children playing in the hot, dusty afternoon, I am content to allow the clink of china and cake forks, adult voices and the drone of flies, lap at the edges of my attention.
Suddenly, as though a tidal wave were crashing into my tranquil waters, words register. Deep, resounding and piercingly clear, they shatter my stupor. “God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent”, says a cultured adult voice. But the words resonate, as if they were the very sounds of the cosmos, and I the quivering instrument played.
“What does it mean?” I ask urgently, demanding attention to my small presence. Now wide awake and agog, I ask again. “Please, what do those words mean?
I listen carefully, all alert attention.
“God is omniscient means God knows. God knows all there is to know. God knows everything that has ever happened, everything that will ever happen and everything that is happening right now. God knows how perfect all of existence is, in every moment. God knows every nook and cranny of the universe and knows every thought and every feeling in the minds and hearts of all beings.”
The old man speaking has white hair, gentle eyes that seem to see another world, and a serene voice. He continues:
“God is omnipotent means that God is all-powerful. It is the power of God that is the source of all of life. Everything in all of space and time is created and powered by God. Nothing happens without God. Not the tiniest teardrop nor the most distant star exists without this power. All movement of every kind everywhere in existence is empowered by God. All action, an act of God.”
I hear the words and feel myself suspended like a puppet, waiting for him to continue.
“God is omnipresent.” My small body shudders with a strange recognition of what is to come.
“This means that God is everywhere all the time. There is no place that God is not there. There has never been a time that God is not present, not even for a second. God permeates all that is. All that is, is made up of God, always has been and always will be. What is, is God.”
The voice stops. Silence. Still moments filled with the portent and peace of these profound words.
In this hallowed silence I squeak, elated and unself-conscious, “So I am God. I must be made of God, too.”
In that moment, I knew this to be the truth. So right, so familiar, so clear. It was as if I had found some long-lost treasured object, but had not known if I only dreamt it. I melted, for a moment, into a serenity of utter knowing, vast and safe beyond any childish conception of the big-bad-wolf world I had to deal with. Even at that age, the sense of freedom at realising myself to be one with God was truly felt.
I cannot say this is exactly what that lovely old man said to me, all those years ago, but I can say this is what I heard. Deeply and profoundly. Consequently, thereafter I was never able to contend with the god or gods of most religions. They seemed to me petty and little!
Amused adult chuckles. “No, little one. You are not God.”
Dismay! As though a second tidal wave had crashed in on the now euphoric waters of my mind. I didn’t understand. I really didn’t understand, but I didn’t have the language to explain my confusion and bewilderment. They had just explained to me how I must be God as, indeed, everyone and everything must be. And yet I was not! I felt alarmed. It was like my nightmare of being lost and alone, in a frightening place – a space I was to occupy for many days of my life to come. Something very precious, only just found, had been snatched away from me. Something very fearful settled deep inside me.
Confusion and hopeless frustration was the form of my fear.
I didn’t get it. Everybody else seemed to get it, but I didn’t. Nothing made sense, and when it did, it was disappointing or terrifying. Finding safety in an unsafe world became my motivation, overlaid with a hunger for that golden mystery hidden somewhere out of sight. Going where angels fear to tread, I took my fear and my vision on crusade. Part of me was a frightened child and part of me, an intrepid warrior – as unlikely a pair of voyagers as one is likely to find.
It would be many years, and a great journey of bewilderment and wonderment, before this fear was dislodged from its unholy place.
“To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
Bertrand Russell
