The Many Faces of God: Church of Divine Science

BEHOLD THE FACES OF GOD



God has such beautiful faces. Don't you think?

 

 

 

When I look at this picture I kind of feel like crying. You know, the good crying though. The "Holy poop life is so amazing and wonderful and I am so incredibly lucky" kind of crying.  I am madly in love with every single face you see. Madly, madly in love. The thing is, this is only a small sampling of the presence of God in my life. There are so many faces not pictured here. Your face probably belongs here. My life is filled with love. It always has been.

 

(Sarah now scrolls through all her pictures on her phone and facebook and recounts all the amazing moments she's gotten to experience and all the fantastic people she's gotten to know and then becomes nervous that she's having one of those reflective moments people have in movies before they die and is now super paranoid and scared. So, I guess this is as good a time as any to say I love you all and Lacey Dickson is the only person who can go through my stuff when I die.)

 

There was a short phase of my life where I saw God as something apart from me - as something beyond me, greater than me, separate from me. God was a King on a throne. God was high in the sky. God was a million solar systems away and Jesus was the only rocket who could bring us to God's space station among the stars. I would raise my hands up to the sky when I emotively sang praise songs reaching away from myself and toward the greatness of God.

 

I no longer feel this way. I no longer see God as Bette Milder described - from a distance. God isn't some lazy dude laid back drinking beer and watching the game. Nope. God hand crafted the beer and is the beer itself. God created the game, is managing all the teams, is playing every position, is cheering from the stands AND is the sportscaster relaying all the action. God is ALL THINGS. Including you and including me.

 

That's right. You, my friend, are God.

 

BOOM!

 

 

I believe this, but I don't fully understand why. This seems like one of those layered concepts - kinda like understanding all the dimensions of the universe - and 3D still kind of confuses me. So, I haven't worked out all the kinks yet in this God is ALL around us and in us thing. I doubt I ever will. But I enjoyed my visit to The Center for Divine Love - a Divine Science church in south city St. Louis because much of their belief structure met with how my view of God is evolving. Here is their Statement of Being, which was read aloud during the Sunday service.

 

 

God is all, both invisible and visible.
One Presence, One Mind, One Power is all.
This One that is all is Perfect life, Perfect love, and Perfect substance.
Man is the individualized expression of God and is ever one with this
Perfect life, Perfect love, and Perfect substance.

I am an individualized expression of God.

When I first heard that line I couldn't help but think Hmm. I'm an expression of God? Woah. Then God is super weird. God bursts into spontaneous song? God loves to eat chicken in the bathtub? God's favorite word is "poop"? God is a freak.

Like I said...I'm still working out the kinks in this concept.


I had driven by The Center for Divine Love a few times. It's in my neighborhood off the very lively Grand street. The name was enough to peak my interest. So I googled them and learned a little more about Divine Science and the Society for Practical Christianity - which is somehow affiliated.

I have no idea what the "Society of Practical Christianity" is. Many would say it sounds like an oxymoron.

 

Their website is very informative. It has lots of words. Most of the words sound like direct quotes from a bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap. I didn't understand most of what was being said. I got confused. My head started hurting and I gave up.  I've come to the conclusion that anything with the word "science" in it is beyond my level of understanding.

 

So, I turned to Wikipedia which usually can break things down for me into simple understandable terms.

 

 

From the Wikipedia on The Church of Divine Science:

 

Divine Science defines itself as "an organized teaching pertaining to God and the manifestation of God in Creation." It holds that its foundation truth is "that limitless Being, God, is Good, is equally present everywhere, and is the All of everything." It defines God as "pure Spirit, absolute, changeless, eternal, manifesting in and as all Creation, yet also transcending Creation" and that evil is therefore neither necessary nor permanent and has no reality within itself, but has existence only so long as human beings support it by believing in it.

 

 

Yeah. I still got nothing. I've read this six times and every time my eyes glaze over. Maybe it's all the random capitalizations. Why are certain words capitalized?!? I get names and places, but "Good" and "All" and "Creation"?!?!? Why?! What is happening?  

 

 

So, God is present in All things and God is in All of Us and We are All God and God is All around Us All the Time?

 

 

Fuck. I don't know. Let's talk about the service.

 

 

 Rebecca and I grabbed some egg souffles from Bread Co before church. Dang, those things are tasty! Covered in little flakes of buttery pastry crust I entered the building. There were a variety of signs in the entryway. They had those great old school black signs with the white plastic letters. Love those! They said things like "I've Got Peace Like a River" and other religious type quotes I don't remember.

We entered the sanctuary to a roaring crowd of twelve people. I knew from the name "The Center for Divine Love" (CDL) there wouldn't be many people in attendance. Large churches have simple names like The Journey, Faith Church, The River, etc. Churches with names that exceed 4 words tend to be smaller. This is just my experience.

Anyway...

 

 

 

We went inside and found a seat. We were welcomed with "hellos" and smiles. It was a small crowd of very sweet people. At the start of service a woman lit all the candles, but one wouldn't light. She kept trying to light it. I found this highly amusing and giggled, because I am easily amused and immature.  We sang some songs and said the Statement of Being. We read the Lord's prayer in the present tense, because it was explained to us Jesus's language, Aramaic, had no past or future tense. Then this guy, Ken Palmer, an adorable man in a palm tree golf polo shirt, went up to the piano and played the most beautiful music. I sat there mesmerized by his fingers moving across the keys. It was divine. Truly.

Then we meditated. This was my favorite part. With eyes closed and bare feet pressed against the floor we were asked to imagine roots growing from the soles of our feet. Little roots pushed out from my heels and grew longer as the crawled beneath the surface and buried themselves in the ground clinging to every bit of earth along the way.  This meditation made me feel strong, centered and grounded. It was one of the first group meditations I've ever actually enjoyed. It lasted 5 minutes, which is about as long as I can stand to be quiet and still.

The speakers at CDL rotate. This Sunday it was Rev. Tumpe who preached barefoot and walked around the sanctuary talking about us being God's sheep and letting God herd us. At the end of the service all 12 people held hands in a circle and sang a song Rebecca and I didn't know all the lyrics to. It was kind of  awkward. Holding hands with strangers makes me feel awkward.

This used to be a German Divine Science Church building. Wunderbar!

 

We were invited to join the congregation for snacks after church. Everyone requested we return for another visit. At almost every church I've visited someone has asked me to return. Sometimes when I tell people about this church journey thing they make comments on how "dangerous" it is and question how people treat me. "How do people react when you visit?" "Are they mean to you?" "Do they hound you with questions?" "Are they mad you don't want to join their church?" I understand these concerns. Church people have always kind of frightened/annoyed me. Ever since my teens I've assumed anyone who admitted to attending church on a regular basis was an ignorant arrogant bigot who was too stupid to see past the fallacies of organized religion.


My beliefs about church people have changed during this adventure. They've evolved much like my beliefs about God have evolved. Church people are just like me. Church people are me. I am church people. As I work out the kinks of this whole "God is All" thing I see God in more places and I am open to more things. I judge less and appreciate more. I've stopped separating myself and instead reflect on connection. There are more similarities between all the churches I've visited than differences. And there are more similarities between myself and the members of the churches I've visited than differences. That doesn't mean I agree with all the things I've seen and heard or that I want to do facials and get pedicures with all these people, but I no longer fear them or hate them. I see them as part of my journey as I am a part of theirs.

Don't get me wrong, I will never like Scarlett Johansson. I don't care that we are both unique individual expressions of God. There's just something about her I don't like and I judge the crap out of her for no good reason.

I have a lot of room to grow. Baby steps.

Divine Science confuses me. I get it. Kinda. Well, not really. The part about evil really confuses me. So, if we all just collectively stop believing in evil it will die like a fairy without applause? Eh...I don't know about that. But if God is All and God is Good then evil doesn't really factor into that equation. We just made evil up? Sometimes after a church visit I have flash backs to math classes in college where I spent most of the time saying, "What the hell are you talking about?"

All this God stuff exhausts and confuses me. So, just like I did after my college math classes I'm going to grab a glass of wine and go watch Dawson's Creek where the most confusing question is why Joey was ever interested in Dawson at all? Everybody knows Pacy was the dreamiest.


Cheers.