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Thursday, May 05, 2005Book review: What God Wantsby Neale Donald Walsch At the outset we are advised that this book is quite possibly unbelievable and dangerous. In Saudi Arabia, yes. In a land where Deepak Chopra sells in the millions? Maybe not. In fact, one wishes that the author would refrain from sexing up his book as something the grownups don't want you to read and stick to his message. What of Walsch's message? It's a two-part riff blending Chopra's field of all possibilities and Dyer's power of intention. Not to say that he's stolen anything - he's actually drawing on a unity theology that dates back a hundred years. But those who have read Chopra and Dyer will find an awful lot seems familiar. At the same time, Walsch does have a fresh presentation that's worth a look. According to Walsch, the biggest problem we're facing today isn't indifference to God. It's confusion about what He wants. So, what does God want? Walsch seems pretty certain God doesn't want Crusades, Inquisitions or 9/11s. In fact, he's pretty dubious that the Creator of the Universe could get a whole lot out of any of our more bizarre or intensely violent efforts to win His favor. If 9/11 was an effort to do His will, it's pretty small potatoes compared to the forces unleashed by the tsunami. Tower of Babel anyone? I won't reveal what God wants - hate to spoil the book - but I will suggest that a) if God wants something, He can probably get it and 2) if God's as marvelous as they say He is, it probably isn't anything as petty as the slavish adoration of thinking creations who renounced this gift from Him the better to be devoted. So, why do we get all mixed up figuring out what God wants? Walsch says the problem is our separation from God - specifically our failure to realize that this separation is nonsense. Look at the things we tell ourselves: We're banished from the Garden of Eden. No place in heaven for rich men. God's angry about this, punishing you for that. Not happy? You need God in your life. Oh, by the way, God is everywhere in everything. Close your eyes and pray and He's there. Look back on the worst parts of your life and you'll see a second set of footsteps - God walking beside you. Yada, yada, yada. So what's the scoop? Is He always there? Or did He take his thunderbolts and go home? Not to go Freudian (Walsch doesn't), but our problem is that we took the God the Father stuff too literally and started reenacting the same drama reconciling security and individuality with Him that we go through before we learn to walk. And this is not appropriate because God is not human. What is God? Chopra says He is the field of all possibilities. That's one way of describing the only force in the universe capable of creating something out of nothing and then permeating every last bit of the creation He's made. Where is God? It looks like He's everywhere. Except of course that He's waiting for us in heaven, but only if we're good... If you want to find God in the rocks and trees, that's hunky dory, but if you start finding him in people, watch out. Only a lunatic would suggest the ultimate result of God being everywhere: That He's even in us, and more bizarrely, that we're in Him (John 14:20). Or, more to the point, that we are facets of Him (John 10:32- ?). Assuming that God is everywhere, that we're part of Him, that He isn't separate from us and all that other good stuff, where does Walsch's astonishing book leave us? Well, it looks like if God wants anything, it's what we want for each other since we're aspects of Him and He is everything and not being separate from Him we can't give Him anything that He doesn't already have... It gets tangled. But when you boil down what Walsch has to say, it goes like this: Do unto others as they would do unto you, for as you do even unto the least among you, you do unto Him. Shocking stuff, eh? Still, worth a read, if only to take your focus back to the idea that God is love and away from our too common use of Him on high to work our will by threatening separation from Him for those who don't do what we want. 
posted by gbarto at 6:23 PM |
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