After years of questioning, Carolyn C. Miller has accepted that she will never fully understand God. (By Michael Williamson – The Washington Post)

By Carolyn C. Miller
Saturday, August 22, 1998; Page D07

My 5-year-old grandson recently asked me whether I had ever seen God. "No, I've never really seen God with my eyes," I said.

"Well, what do you think God looks like?"

As I was pondering how to respond, his 4-year-old brother offered, hopefully, "Well, maybe God's just a big head! Or maybe he's a very old man, with long hair and a very long beard, because he was the first one to die. So he must really be old!"

I agreed that these might be possibilities, then assured them that even though I'd never actually seen God, I had felt God in my heart, and knew that "God is here, and loves all of us." They seemed to be satisfied with that response.

When I was their age, asking such questions meant that I would be given a lesson in complicated rules, confusing stuff for an inquisitive preschool mind to digest. I remember thinking that if I pretended that I was an adult, I'd be committing the sin of adultery. And wishing that my mother was more like my best friend's more lenient parent was somehow akin to coveting my neighbor's wife.

Difficult to understand and precluding further discussion, these lessons put a damper on openness about God, death, and religious faith. I suspect that I responded in a similar vein to my children's questions when they were young. I depended too readily on pat answers. Answer, as a singular noun, has the ring of authority and finality, which was the definition of faith that I provided. I had never doubted the matters of faith and dogma that I had inherited. They were beyond questioning – certainly beyond my questioning.

What a long and arduous journey I've made since then! In retrospect, I know that God has been with me all the way. But what a dramatic change God has undergone in my own personal perception.

When I was much younger, I found great consolation in the thought that conscientiously following the rules would make me a "good child" and God would love me, and I would be saved. This seemed doable, even easy.

I had learned a lot about God's justice, and not much about God's love. Fear was a powerful force that was used to great advantage – by our parents and our teachers – to keep us in line. Only years later did I realize how impossible it is to love that which one fears. Much that was joyful and creative was squashed.

The misconception that I labored under was that if I obeyed all the rules, and could just be good enough, God would make everything in my life wonderful.

One day, I faced it: That was a big lie. A rancorous and painful divorce had followed 20 years of an unhappy marriage, causing havoc in my life and the lives of my four teenagers. Never having worked outside my home, I fell into a pit of anxiety and despair. I felt like the victim of a dirty trick. I was angry – at God, at the church, at my parents, and at myself.

I stopped a lifetime practice of attending church every Sunday, rain or shine, in sickness and in health. I started thinking about spiritual and religious questions for myself, and struggled to figure out the answers to the big questions:

Why am I here? Is this all just a random accident? Is there a God? What does he (or she) look like? Is he just a big head? If God is good and all-powerful, why does evil exist? Why do bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Was Mary really a virgin? If God is all-loving and all-knowing, why would he create someone who would be condemned to everlasting hell? Is there really a hell? Or a heaven? Is there really life after death?

This quest for understanding has brought me a long way from the rules I learned so many years ago. I and my children survived the divorce and have gone on to full and productive lives.

But I've found that I have a lot fewer answers than I had before. I do believe in a loving God, one who is for us, not against us, and who strengthens us when we ask. I don't believe that God tests us or deliberately causes pain to anyone. I do believe that we are to love God, because God is goodness, joy, beauty and love, and in loving God we love all that is best in ourselves, each other, and in the world.

I think prayer and meditation are good for our souls, and for those for whom we pray. I think most people are basically good, and most world religions are fundamentally based on love, but often get too caught up in dogma and rules.

To be happy we must have God in our lives – however we may name, or not name, this power that some of us call God. When we are filled with joy, we are the most able to love God and one another, which is all that Jesus asked of us (see Mark 12:30-31).

Faith may be a gift, but we must choose it and live it in order to get it and keep it. While I believe in God and in an afterlife, I have accepted the fact that I will never fully understand the nature of either, which is another and very different definition of faith.

Carolyn C. Miller recently retired from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She lives in Alexandria.