Circling Around God

“I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.”   –Ranier Maria Rilke

When I was young I went to Sunday school every week.  As I got older, I started going to church camp and various youth conventions with the church youth group. It seemed that many other children (and later, teens) didn’t have the questions about God that I did. Or perhaps they just didn’t ask them aloud, as I did. Still today, I question what others seem to accept so readily. Is it a lack of faith? Is it doubt? Is it an unquenchable thirst that nothing quite satisfies? I’ve never been able to say, “This is what I believe, without a doubt.” God has always seemed to be fluid and just out of reach, making it impossible for me to commit to any definitive, unchanging concept of God. Nothing is quite clear to me when it comes to spiritual matters. As a young adult, I studied philosophy and many various religions. Later still, once I got into recovery and began studying and applying the 12 Steps in my life, I adopted bits and pieces of all I had learned and incorporated those bits and pieces into my life: a good dose of Taoism, fragments of Buddhism, and the closest thing to a constant in my seeking: the ever-present foundation of Christianity.

For some reason, before “coming to believe that a Power greater than me could restore me to sanity” (Step 2), I believed that there was something wrong with my questioning, my uncertainty, that maybe there was something wrong with me.  I believed that unless and until I could solidly and completely, once and for all, claim something as spiritual Truth, latch on to some version or unchanging concept of God, then I was doing something wrong. I no longer believe this, though. I have come to realize, and accept, that I am a seeker. I will never stop questioning, never stop seeking, never remain stagnant, never be satisfied with what I can see on the surface. I accept that I will never, ever, ever have the answers to the questions. And that no longer feels wrong. In fact, it doesn’t even feel uncomfortable. As Rilke describes in the quote above, I know that I am destined to continue circling around God, circling around the Truth, looking at God from this angle today, and that angle tomorrow… and even if I were to circle for a thousand years, I still wouldn't know. And that is okay. That is more than okay – just ask Paul: “For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I have been known.”  –1 Corinthians 13:12

For me, the circling, the seeking God, is the one thing that is a constant, the one thing I know for sure, without a doubt, has been unchanging throughout my life.

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.