GOD is Inside
. . . a reality mythos offered in memory of Joseph Campbell . . .

 

 

I was watching american Public Television earlier this month (August 2001) and saw portions of a program in which Bill Moyers interviewed the late noted philosopher and educator, Joseph Campbell.  Campbell discussed mythos stories of several previous cultures in human history and remarked to Moyers that the modern era - with its sciences of physics and exotic knowledge beyond the casual understanding of most people - has yet to produce any comparable body of 'stories' and mythologies which match and pace our era's perceptions about .. existence.

Oh, there are stories that try to deal with ethics and standards of behavior .. that try to scenario role-models of decorum, as it were.  But there is little or no imagery - except those sacrosanct versions weakly proferred by some current religious - that looks at appreciated phenomena and tries to wield and blend them into     something new.  Existing renditions are already several thousand years old.  Modern discoveries are irrespective.

I personally don't concern myself with just how important it is or not to have a mythology that matches perceptions, but the idea intrigued me.

So today, August 21^st, while going through my life's routines, and, allowing my thoughts to drift about - recalling internet conversations I've been following on several different listservs - ones that talk about the essentials of existence, of spiritual needs arising in the face of 'un-spiritual' science around the planet - a really wonderful story came to me.  Relationship, really, not quite story-stream of events.   But one that might be worthy of building a story-stream around and upon some day.

 

Spiritually aware people constantly talk about .. God is everywhere, in all things, whether we can 'see God' or not.  And though that seems right to some people (myself included), the notion of something 'being there' .. invisible .. that should be taken on faith as real and present though forever un-identifiable - impossible to 'see' directly - is a stretch of credibility for many other people.

I was driving along an open roadway in my home region east of the Sierra Nevada mountains - a bright sun lit day - taking in the panorama.  And, as I'm prone to do, I appreciated the scene as if it were vibrant, aswarm with light energy fortuitously caught by my eyes and mind, not just a bland "something I'm seeing" - if the sense of these words hopefully conveys the difference I mean.   Colors, shapes, people, mountains, cars, folliage, sky, action and stillness .. a world of so many incredible things/events .. observable in each moment of alert awareness/interaction with it.

But, what is this 'world' I see every time my eyes are open and I'm awake? And what is it made of .. according to what current science ideas tell us it is?    Do I see what they say I see?   Well, yes ... and surprisingly .. no!

Because the world's mass and momentum are shape-formed due to the heavy proton/neutron at al. components within atomic nuclei, but the only things we encounter are the electrons and photons that shield and surround the nuclei.   The whole of the experiential universe we ever "see" and encounter is the complex and combinant alternatives of electrons and lightwaves.  Nothing else.  Ever.

The whole of the natural active world is the gauze of actions among electrons .. even while the "inner" aspects .. the weight and meat of essence .. the protons, neutrons and nuclear heavy particles .. reside there to comprise the inner hidden unseeable un-directly interactable parts.   It is the strewn diversity that never touches its companions but which are the heart and essence and - coordinated mass - of the universe .. everywhere and "in" everything though eminently unseeable .. ever.   These just may be the 'body' of God (!).  

Why not!?  The qualities fit, the relations are the same, basically.  God is everywhere but unseeable.  Atomic nuclei are everywhere but unseeable.   Pervading all that is.  Pervading all that is.

Now isn't that a mythos connection to think about?  And what a wondrous story it implies!   (smile)

 

                                                                                                                                                  August 2001

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