The heroes of ancient literature were often known by various epithets or appellations used along with their name. For instance, in Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus is known as the cunning, the master mariner, and as the wise. I’m thinking about our primal spirituality and what appellation we would give to the God of our primal spirituality. I say it is the possible—God the Possible. Because indeed, with the experience of that true God, that true reality of Being, whatever is true is possible and is known to be possible. Living from our primal spirituality, we know that possibility. It is real to us.

Down through the ages, there have been people who had an experience of God the Possible. It is apparent in the modern world that the experience of God the Possible has eroded and decayed and devolved, so that God is often presented through the religions of the world as God the Impossible; the God of “No, you can’t,” “No, you shouldn’t” and “No, you aren’t.” Not God the Possible who says, “You are gifted and you are great.” “You can.”

The awareness of God the Possible has, all too often, eroded and become a God that says, “You’re a sinner. You’re bad. You never will. You never can.” The result is a deepening faith in God the Impossible. It would be bad enough if it was just taught on Sunday, or Saturday, or Friday, but the belief in God the Impossible has seeped into the minds and hearts of all too many people around the globe, regardless of religious affiliation or the lack thereof.

With such a God often being presented by the religions of the world, it is understandable that the culture of the industrialized nations of the world has, first of all, put the God of religion somewhere in the backseat. Through the rise of scientific thought during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment periods, and afterward, the religions of God the Impossible were set to one side so that human knowledge could advance. That has continued to this present day when there has been a large-scale rejection of God the Impossible. At least, on the surface it looks that way. Within my lifetime, people are leaving the church in droves in the United States and Europe. In my work with young people who come to Sunrise Ranch and elsewhere, I often find a deep suspicion of religion and of any kind of spirituality. But even when formal religion and spiritual practice is rejected, belief in God the Impossible may remain. There is a profound conviction in many people of all ages that real fulfillment in their own lifetime, for themselves or for humanity as a whole, is not going to occur. God the Impossible has seeped deep into the minds and hearts of many people everywhere, until they have come to accept on faith the impossibility of their own life and the impossibility of any kind of real fulfillment being known to them.

There is plenty of faith in our world today, most of it invested in the impossibility of it all: in the inevitability of global warming, financial decay and destruction, pollution and destruction of species, extinction of species. So there is plenty of faith in all that, and plenty of faith in war and terrorism. I am not blind, so I am aware of what the facts are. But I am not talking about the facts right now. I am talking about faith in the inevitability of the predicament for the individual and for us all. For several generations now, we have been raising children who grow up believing in the impossibility of life—the impossibility of life with atomic weapons, the impossibility of life with what we are doing to this planet.

So I’m all for facing facts, but I’m not talking about just facing facts. I’m talking about a broken faith. It weakens people to believe in God the Impossible. It weakens their hearts, it weakens their strength, their self-reliance, their ability to let their spirits take flight, their ability to see, their ability to have faith in one another, their ability to come together and do something great, to fulfill their destiny and calling as humanity. All that is pretty hard to do when you worship God the Impossible. That is what we are striving with every day, with ourselves and the people in our lives. In our communities, in our organizations, in our families, we are striving with a faith in God the Impossible, so that no matter what you talk about and what ideas you have for what might be creative and what people might do, you are struggling with faith in God the Impossible. There is a template present in consciousness that is telling people that, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what inspiration may come, because they believe in this almighty God the Impossible.

We have to get to the root of the problem, which is this faith. We have to face our own faith in God the Impossible and then face it in other people. The most obvious way that it shows up for us as individual human beings is in a sense of impossibility about our own life. We have dreams and then come to believe they are impossible. How many dreams have you given up on? We have ambitions, things that we think we’d like to undertake and have happen in our life. And at some point we say, “Well, that’s just not possible. And I’ll settle for this.”

Over the past week I’ve become active on Facebook. Sometimes I feel it’s beneath my dignity, but it is useful as a way to connect with people, and I’ve had many wonderful and warm connections, so I’m grateful for that. It turns out that I am friends with someone I have never met who is a single-family farmer here in Colorado. He has apparently fallen upon hard times. He is at high risk of losing his farm and his health is failing him. He is losing hope, and he is beginning to believe ever more deeply in God the Impossible. In the past few days he posted something on Facebook that made it sound very much like he was coming close to taking his own life and giving up totally.

That was heartbreaking to read. I commented that we raise grassfed beef here at Sunrise Ranch and that he ought to look me up to see if there is some way he can play a part in what we are doing. We are always looking for a good cowboy.

I was overwhelmed with joy at the other comments that people made on this man’s post, evidence that there are at least some in the world today who do have faith in God the Possible. They have it for themselves and they have enough to share with somebody else, to offer encouragement. Here is some of the dialogue. It is a small selection from many posts. Perhaps it will move you like it did me.

The Farmer

I’ve got nothing left to live for. The farm is gone. Those who I trusted turned on me. I’m in pain all the time with no way out, no way to address the legal issues, no way to stop the pain. My dreams are trashed, all my blood, sweat and tears for nothing, all the sacrifice for nothing. No hope, nothing left at all. It is over for me.

Responses

I will not “like” this. I want to tell you, don’t give up. Call someone, anyone. I hate hearing what happened to you, sir, but don’t ever give up. I send you peace and love.

This is not true. Please stay safe.

No—do not do nothing like that. Even if you have to start over, it’s gonna be okay. Go to a hospital ER if you have to, to ask someone for help. Please.

When things are falling apart it’s really so that better things come into place. Don’t stress. It will all work out. Be patient with the universe as your destiny unfolds. If your life was over you would know. Your mission on earth is not yet complete. So make the best of what you’ve got right now and find the little things to be grateful for. Stay strong. Love you.

You need to stop having a pity party and find ways to fix your situation. Find ways to at least be happy. Move. Make new friends. Travel. If you are unwilling to take a step in any other direction but the one you’re in, how will your current situation ever change? If there is nothing you can do, you need to find a way to come to terms with your situation so that even though it’s shitty you can still somewhat enjoy it. Stop overthinking life. Life is more simple than that.

I don’t know you, but I’ve been where you are at. And even though it seems like this will never get better, that your life doesn’t matter, or your only option to ease your pain is through death, it will. Seriously, it will get better. Your life does matter, and you have to dig deep, maybe the deepest you have ever dug, to find that strength you have left to fight this pain that is taking over you right now. You have more fight and more strength to carry on and get through this than you think. It’s there. Dig for it.

Stop, please, Love. I know life is not fair at all. I myself have been through more than anyone will ever know. You go look at my pictures and posts. You would never even know. I have found ways to cope with my struggles daily with the Lord’s help.

I’ve been there. It doesn’t sound like you are a quitter. This is when we become men. I know it’s hard, but what you’re talking about is giving up on life. From the posts and comments, there is plenty of help out there, and it sucks sometimes to ask for it. But once you do, you will find that so many of us have gone through similar problems, maybe even worse. Don’t give up. Don’t EVER give up. God bless. And keep that head up. Sounds like you were taking it by the horns. So you got bucked off. Dust yourself off, smile, and get back on.

It takes great courage to turn around the great faith in God the Impossible. Courage is a strength of heart. It is different from physical strength. It is the strength to keep going. It is the strength to face the matters of the heart that are up for you or up for another person. Courage is the willingness to face one’s own lack of faith and convert it into faith. Not only faith in what is possible in your own immediate circumstances, but your faith and awareness of a reality that transcends those circumstances. True faith in God the Possible is a letting go into the awareness of spiritual things while being firmly planted on the earth.

I have met many people who think of themselves as spiritual, but when it comes to their own life and what could manifest, they believe in God the Impossible. Of course, that’s what many of the religions of the world have been selling: It can’t happen here, but when you die and go to heaven it’s all going to be okay. Or when you reincarnate it will get better if you are good now.

It takes the courage to fully face your life and be in your life. It takes courage to embrace the possibility that all of what is in the spiritual could be right here in your life and in mine. In fact, in essence it is here already. When you get right down to it, the issue is this: the belief that whatever heaven is, it couldn’t be here now. That whatever peace is, we couldn’t know it here and now among ourselves. And that even if God is one, we can’t know oneness among ourselves as human beings.

So no matter how much people try to come together and find solidarity amongst themselves, it seems to break apart. And no matter how many good people there are in the world who would post something positive on Facebook, it is challenging to rally together as people of integrity on this planet and really make a difference. Our solidarity gets undermined by an underlying faith in God the Impossible. Because until we have faith in the oneness that underlies us all in the commonality of our humanity, we do not experience our own oneness. God the Possible—the God of the primal spirituality we share in common—is that one factor that brings us all together and lifts us out of all the silly things that keep us apart, all the ego-centered, death-centered patterns, all the little-me ways of thinking of ourselves and thinking of other people. When those negative beliefs take over, the faith and the experience of the one God that is behind us all doesn’t bring us all together. I’m not talking about my God or your God. I am talking about the God, the one God, the One Reality.

So we’re getting right down to facing the horrible loss of our primal spirituality. Every true religion began with God the Possible and somebody who had an experience of that reality. The meaning and value of religion is the reminder that we could have that experience right here and now, together. We could live in our primal spirituality, not to start a religion—I don’t think we need another one. What we need is to live in our primal spirituality and be in that reality and call ourselves back to that reality if ever we wander from it. We have to accept that our primal spirituality is the template for our life. I’ve never been able to get my life to make any sense on any other basis. How about you?

We are created by our very nature as human beings to live in form in this wonderful human flesh and to love this flesh, to love being in the flesh of the physical body, in the emotional body, and in the mind. We’re made to be in this flesh. And then, being in this flesh, to welcome everything of the Divine into it. It takes both ends of that polarity to let life work. My picture of people who have faith in God the Impossible is that they are trying to get out of their flesh. They are believing that fulfillment could not happen in their flesh because their flesh is somehow corrupt and awful. So they are trying to sneak out of it and sneak towards God. I don’t think that’s how life works. The more we land up in our flesh and take responsibility for Being in the flesh, the more we are the negative pole to the positive pole of God the Possible—and opposites attract.

By being fully in our flesh, we are saying to the Divine, “Come here. Be in this. Heaven, be here. All the Possibility of what could happen in a human life, be here now, flow here. O great Holy Spirit of God, come into this flesh.” We say, “Be here with me, and I will be here with You.” And we hear back, “Be here with Me, and I will be here with you.”

I know no other way to fix the horrible problems that exist between us as human beings, around the planet, in the macro and in the micro. No other way to fix them than to recover our primal spirituality and regain our faith and knowing of God the Possible. No other way than our faith and knowing of what transcends this flesh, and then our faith and knowing of what can manifest in the flesh and through the flesh in this life. Where that faith is present, there is the template for humanity. There is the template for you and for me. In that template we all fit together at whatever proximity. We all have a relationship that’s founded upon Universal Love, and we have a way of being together that’s born out of that love. The way Universal Love appears is unique and different between any two people, and the template for that uniqueness is present in God the Possible. This is our common origin and within it is contained our common destiny as humanity.