The Pious, the Righteous, the Holy Man’s Due
For all of recorded history the pious, the righteous, the holy men have told us what we should and should not do, who and what to embrace or avoid, how to live our lives too often through fearful restrictions of “no” rather than through proactive examples of “yes.” Why are we not encouraged to explore all there is?

They fight for the last breath of a way of life which is challenged by an interconnected world, giving fear a smaller place to hide. They defend the ancient ways because in a state of fear no one asks why.

At one point gods were the bearers of lightning bolts and thunder claps, the explanation for the migration of game and the success or failure of crops. Gods lived among us for thousands of years, producing offspring with supernatural powers. We now learn of Zeus as a myth of ancient times, but for the Greeks he was as real as are Jesus, Mohammad, and Buddha today.

Everyday we learn a little more about how the universe works, and every day our perception of God changes. If God is relegated as the filler of gaps, the things we cannot explain, then the more we rely upon our own experience, the more His kingdom takes on a different form. On Discovery’s new “Curiosity”, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking made a daring (for the North American audience) statement that God did not, could not have created the universe. While the show offered only a weak display of the discoveries on which Hawking and many others stand, the real issue is not if we should believe in a power greater than that which we can experience in these four dimensions, but what attributes do we grant that power in order to best guide us in our lives.

Of Expansion, Not Fear
The path to a higher level of living cannot be one of restriction and fear, for it is through the embrace of expansion and knowledge that we have found the greatest depth and beauty in a world we hold dear.

I do not believe in a greater power, but in the power of knowledge I do have faith. I believe in the power of people who come together to do good. I believe in both the private and shared experience of something greater than ourselves, an elated exchange between individuals who find connection to work through their pain. I believe the greatest celebration of what we have been given is to challenge the greatest gifts we do employ, our hearts and our brains.

If mathematicians spent two thousand years arguing the incremental value of “1” then calculus would have never been born and we would remain without moon dust on our boots or the birth of stars in our eyes. We would yet be an ignorant species, living in the security of our own mental bars.

Show me the maker of one hundred billion galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, who cares not for the words we choose in our conversation, the way we dress, or how we share our bodies, as all animals do. Show me the great caretaker who does not track our sins on an eternal spreadsheet, but instead one who desires to give Her children the knowledge and power to explore the universe, to relish in the glory of space so much larger than our depraved, social din.

The Intergalactic Captain Comes
If God arrives in a rocket ship and calls from the upper deck of the captain’s lounge, “Who wants to see what I have built? It’s a-m-a-z-i-n-g! Everyone, please, come on board!” then I will be the first to believe in a maker greater than the power of one’s own mind.

Until then, I see individual spirituality and shared faith as a means to maintain hope, an anti-gravity to lift humanity above the weight of its antiquated, blind Pope. For the very confusion of our interpretation of everything we do will never give us clarity to truly see You. In this place, in this corner of intergalactic space, we are wasting time, two thousand years proving that we do in fact believe the right thing.

When do we stop reinforcing our foundation, and launch skyward to ride on a holy new wing?

Some say in death. Some say in a week. Some say never, while others, “It will be only the meek.” I say bring it on! I am ready to explore. Let’s welcome the God of everything and leave this humble, spinning abode. It’s time to rise above out petty differences, our boundaries so thin. It’s time to do something amazing, not the same thing over and over again.

Come God come, in rocket ship form! Show us you yet exist, the maker of our isolated, desolated, woefully focused home.

© Kai Staats 2011