“…If I think about this whole religion enterprise hard enough, then I’ll understand God and have it all figured out. Thinking hard enough will save me. But the assumptions behind my thinking salvation project are all wrong: God is not an idea we believe in, or a being somewhere out in space kind of like us except bigger, more powerful, and more in control; instead, God is a reality in which we participate, God is a spirit — a holy spirit, the one we’re celebrating today — that moves us into the world. Most of my thinking about God is really idolatry, just making a bigger version of me into God. You know, it’s amazing how much God and I agree. The question is not whether you believe in a set of ideas, the question is whether you are taken in by the ways you are connected to your neighbor, the question is whether you’re taken up by a mystery that makes you fully alive, taken up by a Spirit that makes you want to be the very best version of yourself, a Spirit that makes you see yourself and the world as they really are, so that you can reach out in love where it’s needed most…”
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