The Power of Process
It was many years ago now when I was newly sober and I was going through an immensely challenging time and everything that I tried was failing that a friend tried to offer me advice, he offered me solutions, he tried to fix, he made constructive comments about what he thought I could and should do better. And I was so frustrated with him, I didn't want him to think that I was resistant or ungrateful but the reality was that he was not empathising and pretty much everything he had suggested I had either tried or what he suggested I changed was not the case in the first place. He shrugged and said "Sometimes some people just have to undergo God" and I was like "woah! what does THAT mean?" and he said he didn't know except he had read it in the writings of Richard Rohr and it seemed appropriate here. And my GOODNESS was he right, it changed me in that very instant.
What does it mean to "undergo God"? It means (to me) God is a Process. And I have gone on to read more into Process Theology and it just rings load and clear to me. I am probably one of the most spiritual atheists you could imagine. I consider agnosticism the highest wisdom. No one can know with their human knowing mind one way or another what the Truth is; but "knowledge of That , knowledge of which, makes all things known", a felt knowing, a lived experience. And since all experiences of the Mystery are equally valid and personal I just dwell in a place where all of it is true and none of it is the full Truth. This is the art I feel of accompaniment, whether of the dying or just of another human, or even ourselves... just be with a person where they are at.
And I am aware that the human mind is immensely powerful, and exponentially more powerful again is the collective human mind, for better and for worse. So carved out of Unity, through the lens of duality, comes these forms of deities and beings created by the mind to act as our Gods (I believe, not interested in proselytising, take it or leave it). I can conceive of power greater than myself to act in the capacity of a benevolent and loving God but that is simply MY higher power, not the ultimate One. So I am A-Theist in the sense that I don't subscribe to the notion that God is a deity being except in the reality of the collective human mind.
BUT, God as Process... now you are talking! Because if I look at my personal process within the context of a collective process, the process itself contains all the qualities I would associate with a deity; the process of loving, love and be loved, the process of forgiveness, forgive and be forgiven, the process of consciousness, awaken and be awakened, the process of peace, still and be stilled. The process has all the terrifying qualities of the Unknown, it is revealing itself in the moment, it can feel like it is happening to me and I am not sovereign, I am a victim of the process at times. Until I remember the process would be self responsibility as much as expecting something else to take responsibility for me.
The process has its way, it does what it does and it is both mysterious and intimately personal all at the same time. The process is generative, it is creative and revelatory in the moment. The process is also destructive, burning up what is not real, revelling in ego death and letting go. The process is material and physical as well as being spiritual. The process is intelligent and is woven through with Love.
Process is progress, not perfection. Process is learning, growing, changing. The process builds you up and the process breaks you down.
You can trust the Process. Even when it seems like that would be a very bad idea and willfully controlling it would be the safer way, even your willfulness is part of the process. ARGH, will the process not just fuck off and let me live my life in peace? Yes, the process might be to fuck the process right off, put the process in the bin and ignore it, all part of the process. The process is really annoying! I hate the process. Ah yes, says the process, that will pass. Fuck you smug process.
What if I want a day off from the process? Can I rest in the process? Can I just not be eternally unfolding revelatory consciousness coming to know itself, just for a short time? Yes, rest is part of the process. Doing nothing is part of the process. Process doesn't move along a linear timeline. Time is a form of process.
Being held back, thwarted, frustrated.... process.
Believing ones own bullshit and forgetting about the process... process.
Omnipresent, all knowing, knowledge just unfolding into not-knowing, forgetting and remembering.
Yes, for me God is Process. This is why I personally share my process in my writings, in my teaching, on my social media. It keeps me off a pedestal for myself and others to share my process but I am sharing with you my God. It can be triggering for some people to read how vulnerable I make myself and they think they need to come in and fix, change or provide me the answers; this is their process and mine to put boundaries in. That is the collective process.
The thing about process is that you can only see it in fractions of hindsight and even then, in that moment of consciousness, the process has already moved on. We cannot ultimately know, really, where the process is taking us or if there is even a destination or future place where the process will end. The process is Eternal and it is of the Now. Without beginning or end, it simply IS.
And I will be writing more about this in the coming days and weeks...