Cottrell, Needleman and Me

Dear Boo and Bubble,

I was in the doctor’s office a while back and randomly picked up a magazine to read as one is wont to do when whiling time away.  The title of the magazine was The Sun*, one of which I had never heard, but it’s cover intrigued me.  I thumbed through the table of contents and paused on the letters to the Editor, both extolling and excoriating the virtues of prior articles in prior editions.  The first article in the current magazine had a captivating title – Beyond Belief – Jacob Needleman on God Without Religion. 

As I started reading it, the nurse called my name to come back to the examining room.  I held onto the magazine and asked the receptionist if I might not be able to take it with me.  She politely acquiesced..….after all, it had been sitting there since December of 2011. 

That night, as I headed up to bed, I took the magazine with me and continued to read.  A paragraph jumped out at me – completely caught my fancy – because, quite frankly, over the course of my life I have wrestled with a satisfactory definition for God, one that fit my life’s journey.  Needleman’s words went like this -

“It is only in and through people, inwardly developed men and women, that God can exist and act in the world of man on earth.  Bluntly speaking, the proof for the existence of God is the existence of people who are inhabited by and who manifest God…God needs not just man, but awakened man, in order to act as God in the human world.  Without this conscious energy on the earth it may not be possible for divine justice, mercy, or compassion to enter the lives of human beings.”

Wow……what a concept.  That God exists through people and their relationships with one another.

Then, just yesterday, Captain was reading to me from your great, great, great, great grandfather J.B. Cottrell’s writings from the 1870’s.  I was struck immediately with the similarity of thought.

What Miss Bevington asks in reference to the conservative influence of the motive arising out of human relations  as compared with any reference to a Divine Authority, is easily answered.  First that which is natural-afterwards that which is spiritual and the former in order to the latter. The natural is, potentially, the spiritual.  Human  relations are the wires along which the electric, spiritual life, passes. The terms denoting them are burdened with spiritual import, and loves awakened by t hem- are interpretive of that highest love which, to all human loves is as white light is in comparison of the many colored lights that vary the view of the earth.

And, again in another article -

“It is only as we contemplate our relationships and the principles conceiving them from this high standpoint of revealed truth that we may apprehend and realize them to be as vital as life itself.  Our relations are the electric lines along which the lightening of heaven is at play, and to study their sacredness and to come fully into all their measures of obligation is to become incorporate with God.

Our relationships are the channels through which flow from out the divine reservoir, the waters of life.  The possibilities of dignity and honor and glory in man are to be reckoned according to the royal likeness in which he was created.”

Twice he referenced to relationships as the electric wires along which the spirit of God transmits and once that they are channels of flow for the waters of life.

Years ago, I wrote a book entitled The Beacon which was a tale about life in a small Bahamian community called Williamstown on the island of Little Exuma.  As things unfolded, it became apparent to me that the exercise of  writing wasn’t just to tell a story, it was in fact an effort to codify my concept of God as I knew it to be.

At a critical juncture, there is a conversation between the main character Gabriel, a minister, and his nephew Manuel who has recently lost his father in a car accident.   It expresses the core of my beliefs and goes like this:

“And wait for this GRACE you keep preaching about.”  The bitter edge to Manuel’s voice returned as he almost spit the word.  “I just don’t get you Gabriel, how you’ve just swallowed this stuff like some kind of pill that anesthetizes you, so no matter how much you hurt, you just pass it off as God’s will, so it’s okay because everything is going to be just fine.  All you have to do is wait.  Just wait on God.  Who IS God anyway?  I wish he’d show his face right now and quit hiding behind people like you!”

Gabriel sat silently for a few minutes as if absorbing the anger Manuel just threw at him.  He heaved a sigh, burying his face into his hands.  It was hard to tell whether he was praying or crying.

“God is love,” he mumbled through his fingers.

“What…..what did you say?”

“God is love.”  He looked up directly into Manuel’s eyes.  “I’ve wondered about whom God is all my life.  In fact, I’ve devoted my entire pastoral journey to the search for an answer.  All of the training, all of the study, all of the reading has come down to one simple truth…..1 John 4:08 – He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Manuel, all I can do is tell you what I know.  You’re right.  It was not fair for me to have these twisted legs.  Nor was there any reason for Sam to die, or your father.  But, as a part of this universe, of this creation, we are not guaranteed anything – not strong legs, or long lives, or happiness or freedom from pain.  It’s not based on being good or bad, believing or denying.  It just happens.”

“But, I thought your God was all-powerful, could do anything, could….could…,” Manuel sputtered.

Gabriel interrupted him.  “Could step in and erase the bad?  Make it all go away?  Oh, some people think so.  Some would tell you that God is more physical, more manipulative, more punitive. That He can control nature, arbitrarily change things against His own design.  I don’t buy that.  Yes, the creation of our world is spectacular, but you’re more likely to feel the power of God in your mother’s touch than in the turbulent wind of a hurricane.”

Gabriel studied Manuel’s face.  He could literally see the struggle to understand going on behind the scowl of the furrowed brows and deeply sad eyes.

“I’ve learned not to expect anything from God but the strength to endure what life brings.  That’s all I ever pray for.  And, my expectations are always met because He sends this strength through love – from family and friends, from nature.  He is working through me right now to help you.  Nobody EVER loved you any more than I do.  Yes, God exists, and He is love.”

Manuel looked at Gabriel in disbelief.  How was it possible that the whole concept of God could be as simple as one person loving another in a time of need.  “But, what about the whole world, the kingdom, all of it?”

“Ah, yes, the continuum.  That is a very important part of it as well because through all of the darkness and pain presented by life, tomorrow always comes even if you don’t believe it will.  Death is never final.  New life always springs forth after the old passes away.  Hope and love always abide.”

Not that I could ever be in the same intellectual arena with Dr. Cottrell or Jacob Needleman, it is interesting that all three of us have a similarity of thought as to the nature of God and how important human relationships are to that nature.


* - For fascinating information on The Sun, go to www.thesunmagazine.org.