God Beyond Words by Larissa Kaye Batten

A God Beyond Words by Larissa Kaye Batten And on the eighth day, man created God. Who else but man would donate only a mere three letters of the alphabet to the power behind the universe? For those who believe that God in fact is the be all-end all of life on earth, how many have stopped to wonder who invented God? More importantly, how is the human being, limited by the scope and language of his own tongue, so sure he gave God the right name? Many would profess to say that God in fact is not the name they would use at all to depict their own conception of a higher being. Nature, the Great Spirit, Allah, Buddha, Goddess, Jesus Christ, no Christ, the earth, so many names has the human being given to his understanding of a higher power. Is it possible that the human being has attempted to give God a name to make God more understandable, reachable, merciful, and perhaps even human? The amount of war, terror, crime, and destruction that has resulted from man's obsession with naming God is uncanny. How many have died at the hands of their own tongues? Were man to have no language, and God to have no name, would swords and pistols fall to the ground? One might wonder if man has come to worship a word when once he sought to worship a higher power.  Three letters do not bear much weight in light of a God who is attributed with creating a world, saving its people, and providing a life everlasting. Three measly letters are even less than the number of letters given to a curse word. And yet man will swear by the letters, live by these letters, kill by these letters, and die at their side. If man were to awake one day to find an absence of tongue, if man were to lose all methods of communication to his fellows, what then would he say to qualify his God? It is conceivable that all the different words man has developed to describe his understanding of a higher being are simply alternate ways of naming the same higher being, or at the very least a similar one. If God truly is all that he is cracked up to be, why would man believe he has the power to put him into words. And if God gave man the power to name him, is it really possible he wanted no more than three letters to glorify his name? Maybe it is time to find a God beyond words. Maybe it is time to admit that man is incapable of naming God, and that he is merely restricting his own concept of a higher power by trying to do so. For all those who find it necessary to give God a three-letter name, why not think of God as a nickname. Perhaps it is time to let God take care of his own name. If he truly is all powerful, let "God" stick to what he does best. And when man desires to strike another man dead in the name of God, may he remember a God beyond words. A power is a power is a power. May each man have the right to come to his own understanding of a higher power. May every man come to see how similar his conception really is to the next man's. And no matter what, may the world begin to see a God beyond words. Larissa Kaye Batten