Is anyone a real agent of God? I mean, can any single human being stand before another and profess to know any more about the after-life or about an infinite creator? To me, the short answer is simply: No. There might be hundreds upon hundreds of priests and pastors and clerics and other religious leaders. But they don’t know any more about God than anyone else. What they do know is their brand of religion and they probably know a heck of a lot more about their respective religion than other people. But do they know more about God? Nope.
There’s all sorts of religious platitudes and clichés about God: “God works in mysterious ways,” “Let go, let God,” “God is Love” and on and on. But what do they really mean? I don’t look to religious leaders or platitudes for answers because their perspective is just that, THEIR perspective. They don’t know my context and they can’t possibly know my soul. Most of the time, I don’t even know my own soul; how can somebody else claim to know that which I don’t?
I pray. I meditate. But I am often overcome with worry and doubt and fear and in those times, it seems that I’ve lost my faith. Then I hear stories about priests who’ve failed their congregations in very real and specific ways and I can’t help but become even more discouraged. If the flock can’t trust their pastor, to whom can they turn in times of crisis?
Still, I carry forward in hope. It’s not a tactic, I know, but I simply can’t believe that this world was a cosmic accident. Plus, too many things happen in my life that can’t be coincidences. I’ve felt like Owen Meany because when I get to certain points, suddenly the steps that led me there become clear, even if at the time I was taking them I wasn’t really sure why I was. So, I carry on much like a cork on a river. I go where life’s flow takes me, do what I have to do during any given moment, and trust that God is guiding the current.
Life can be a struggle and I don’t think that anyone can ever tell anyone else what’s right or wrong for someone else. We all have our current and we all have to go where life takes us. We may not like where we are or where it may seem like we’re going. Nor may we like other people’s currents. It doesn’t matter what we like or don’t like, however. What matters is that we live every day as best we can with what we have and treat others as kindly as we treat ourselves. Not any better and not any worse, because, in the final analysis, to me, we are all agents of God in our own way.
