Where do we look for God? Judi Marshall
Emilie Cady, author of Lessons in Truth, a Homeopathic Physician, influenced by Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, and New Thought teachers such as Mary Baker Eddy and Emma Curtis Hopkins wrote of centering on a God without and within. Initially we read: “God is Spirit or the creative energy that is the cause of all visible things. God as Spirit is the invisible life and intelligence underlying all physical things” (P. 17-18). We are led to believe then if God underlies all physical things then God is without.
However she also goes on to write: God is that invisible intangible but very real something we call life.” (P.18). Thus God is within us because we are life and Cady brings the two together when she writes God is “omnipotence (all power), omniscience (all knowledge), omnipresence. There is no place that God is not. P. 19. God “lives within every created thing as the life, the ever-renewing, recreating, upbuilding cause of it. He never is and never can be for a moment separated from His creations” (P. 21).
Charles Fillmore co-founder of the Unity Movement with his wife Myrtle Page Fillmore wrote in his compilation of Unity terms, The Revealing Word: A Dictionary of Metaphysical Terms “God is not person but Principle…expressed in all creation.” Although God is said to be personal to us ” …There is a difference between a personal God and God personal to us. ..it would probably be better to speak of God individualized in man rather than of God personal to man” P. 83) God as mind is “The connecting link between God and man. ..God as principle cannot be comprehended by any of the senses. But the mind of man is limitless and through it he may come into touch with Divine Mind” (PP. 83- 84).
In the book Teach us to Pray Fillmore writes: “To Jesus the God presence was an abiding flame of life…He felt in every cell and fiber of His being…” (P. 14). On Page 15 he writes “God Spirit, God-Mind is not in any way confined or limited; it is everywhere present.” He goes on to write: “There is only one God, only one ruling power in all the universe; and the highest avenue through which God can express Himself is man” (P. 20
Author and teacher Rev Paul Hasselbeck writes in his book, Heart Centered Metaphysics, writes “God or Divine Mind is ever-present Spirit. In Truth, we are Spirit; we are Christ (the Idea that is made up of Ideas) P. 39). God is synonymous with “Oneness, Beingness is Spirit the infinite invisible Essence of all life. Spirit is the activity of Divine Mind and can be experienced in all creation” (P. 100). In this text it is apparent God, aka Spirit, aka Christ, Ideas, Oneness, Beingness, is within and without because it appears in all creation and that would include the cosmos.
Rev Linda Martella Whitsett How to Pray Without Talking to God allows God within to emerge from us because we are not separate from it. She writes: “Divine Omnipresence means God is within us, we are within God, and God is everywhere. Whitsett quotes Myrtle Fillmore in How to let god help you, God is…”the principles of Life Love and Intelligence.” On Whitsitt’s personal journey to pray to God, she writes
She started relating to God as “Divine Life, Love and Wisdom ” (P. 10). These qualities express through us as I AM; God through me waiting to express. “I am present. I am feeling the truth before I speak it. I Am” (P.11).
So back to the question: Where do we look for God? What do you think? “What do you need God to be?” “What brings you comfort and what brings you joy?” “Does a God within you waiting to emerge work for you today?” “Are their days when you want the God of the Cosmos to come forth to celebrate or cry with you?” What will your response be? What do you need it to be? As you change and evolve will your concept of God change?
At the beginning of the book The Revealing Word it is noted that Charles Fillmore wrote: “What you think today may not be the measure for your thought tomorrow. A gift of Unity is that there is no prescribed dogma but ideas. And there is agreement among New thought and Unity writers that God is not in a box but more likely within and although there are exceptions, without.
It really does depend on our state of consciousness. And as Fillmore so wisely pointed out our states of mind can and do change. As you note so well, there are days or occasions of such joy that it cannot, but help flow outward from within, and then there are those days or occasions that baffle or plunge us into sorrow or the depths of doubt where we cannot help but cry out to a God that feels at the moment so far away.
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