Introduction: Episode 3
The Map of God
One of the most important maps we’ll need is that of our overall world – the cosmos! This is the vast mystery in which we dwell yet take for granted every day. To put our feet on the ground each morning as we get out of bed, we implicitly trust a map.
Science provides one kind of map for this world of floorboards and bedrooms. Science, using its tools of cause and effect, can work out the molecular structure of wood, the bearing loads for floors, predictions about the weather outside.
Those maps are helpful, but not enough.
Humans need purpose and value and hope to swing their legs out of bed and stand. We need a sense that this world has meaning for us. We need an overall picture of the moral dimensions of the cosmos.
We find that picture in the map of “God.” Every great world religion, in its own distinguishing way, offers a map of the overall context in which we live. And each religion calls that mystery, that vast and limitless context, by a sacred name: the Divine, Nirvana, The Tao, Yahweh, Brahma, Ahura Mazda, Allah, Christ.
These names all function to say that the cosmos is imbued with this distinctive personality, this compelling character. You can count on this when your feet hit the floorboards.
Those names aren’t interchangeable. They suggest vastly different tones or atmospheres to this mystery in which we dwell. Although there is tremendous overlap in values between religious faiths, each has a distinctive spirit. Each has a distinctive way of picturing “home” that shapes the energies and hopes of its followers.
These aren’t maps of spatial quality but of the world’s spiritual quality. In that way, the symbol God is the greatest of maps, giving an overall spirit to our cosmic home.
In my own faith, Christianity, we understand this mystery as Father – creative, personal, shining in beauty. So we sing. . .
This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas--
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father’s world:
He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
And, when evil and tragedy seem to contradict the world of “My Father,” this hymn insists. . .
This is my Father’s world:
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is king:’let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad![1]
That vision of God shapes the steps of those who sing this song. Even in the face of life’s tragedies and injustice, those who follow the map of “my Father” move ahead in confidence.
(Continued December 31, Introduction: Episode 4)
[1] Lyrics by Maltbie D. Babcock (1901), this hymn is found in at least 310 hymnals.