I'm currently drafting my creed as a personal exercise in response to some reading and contemplation that I've done over the summer (and am itching to take the more formal route of completing the UU Building Your Own Theology course). And I'm finding that the word "God" isn't appearing in it. Nor is it likely to. And that doesn't bother me in the least. It's not that I'm becoming an atheist. As I read through the statements I'm making in it (I'll post it in a blog someday), there's more than a few that suggest a kind of pantheism or even panentheism. It's more that the word itself doesn't seem all that meaningful to me anymore. Perhaps it's because there are so many meanings attached to the word "God" that I'm tired of having to explain what I mean by it (esp. since I rejected the traditional transcendant Creator a long time ago). Or, perhaps this surfeit of meanings has simply rendered it meaningless for me. I do still talk about the Universe as being Divine or even Sacred, but not from the perspective of a personal deity implied by that proper noun. It's more that I find the beauty and wonder inherent in the Universe and in the processes that shape it make it, for me at least, Divine in and of itself. So, as I said above, perhaps something more pantheist or panentheist than either traditionally monotheist or atheist.

 I'm still a long way from the end of this road, so maybe this will change again. Until that happens, I bid farewell to the word "God". It has its place and purpose in the world, but it just doesn't seem to strike any chord with me anymore.

Mendalla