Something subtle is obviously here in our lives, that cannot be put into words. This something, which is not in fact a thing, is what allows us to be alive and aware and ever present, intelligent and orderly. (This “something” is what allows me to write and you to read and understand these words.)

Okay, okay, we could call this subtle something God, but then we’ve lost, or left out everybody who does not speak English, and we’ve also left out a sizable portion of English speakers who reject the very notion of God, or at least reject the word itself. The word God carries millennia of baggage. Some very good things are included in those bags, of course, but the word itself has lots of baggage.

So let’s go back to the subtle something here in life that cannot be put into words. Alas, we must use words to talk about this subtle something. Alfred Korzybski, the founder of General semantics, summarized the something as simply,  “what is going on.” What Is Going On covers a lot of ground (and sky and tummy growls etc. etc.) both inside and out. I found that term (simplified into WIGO) quite useful for a long season of my life.

As a monk and senior librarian at Heart Mountain Monastery, it has been my almost a lifelong curiosity to explore the nature and character and quality of this something. Obviously, I am not alone or unique in this lifelong curiosity.

For a long season in my life my daily mantra, prayer, my safe spot, safe thought, was simply Abba, Allah, Amma, Nityananda, Da,  – – names of God (that intelligent something here)  from various traditions.

Witnesses present at Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination said as the assassin came forward and raised his gun, Gandhi immediately started repeating the name of God. Reports indicate it is good karma to have the name of God on your lips when you die, or more precisely, when you pass over. Gandhi had good karma.

In Gandhi’s case the name of God was probably Brahma or Vishnu or Shiva, or maybe even Ganesha.. (The Hindus are much more flexible and understanding with different names of God. It is expected in that culture that a person will find the name—form, quality— of God that  resonates most deeply and follow that resonance. And they recognize that the name that resonates most in one season of life may not resonate so much in the next season. “With names,” Lao Tzu observed, “one should know where to stop.”

Here in the West, probably our most all-inclusive name for God is love. If we died with the word love on our lips that would be good karma. If we died with the feeling of love – – the resonance of love – – that would be even better.

No matter our name for God— for that supportive, living, loving, subtle something that is ever-present— when we die God probably won’t be too miffed if we have Her name wrong. She’ll welcome us with love whatever the name we are using. (Near death experiencers almost universally describe the experience of unconditional love when they have dropped the body.)

That subtle something that is here is beyond gender and/or prior to gender but surely includes gender. The Taoists suggest that something is neatly expressed with the yin yang symbol which is, yes, male and female, but also the light and dark, and originally, most fundamentally, damp and dry.

It feels as if we, as a species, are moving ever so slowly from favoring, or resonating with a patriarchal sense of that something—moving from Our Father— to, at the very least, our Father Mother God.

Mary Baker Eddy, the extraordinary 19^th-century healer, mystic and founder of Christian Science, was one of the first to use the term, Father Mother God. Her use  was quickly picked up by the burgeoning new thought movement, including Charles and Myrtle Fillmore of Unity, and Ernest Holmes of Divine Science.

Mrs. Eddy, as Christian scientists refer to her, offered seven synonyms for God: Principle, Love, Life, Soul, Spirit, Mind and Truth. That’s a pretty good start.

The British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke published a quirky story back in 1953 entitled, The Nine Billion Names of God, about Tibetan monks who were trying to write down every name of God. They assumed when they had them all written down, the universe would end.

Again, as a man with a lifelong curiosity about the nature and reality behind the word God, I’ve experimented with a lot of different names. I’ve learned one can get deliciously spacey when chanting Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Ramma Ramma, Hare Hare.  And as one with a somewhat difficult relationship with my earthly father (“… call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven”) I’ve had long seasons were my preferred name was not Abba but Amma. My destiny has not led me to resonate deeply with the word Allah, but I appreciate the discipline of praying five times a day to that something larger than ourselves.

(A Jehovah’s Witness friend once told me, “if you can count how many times a day you pray, you are not praying enough.” Pray without ceasing, the Scriptures suggest.)

My own relationship with God, with that subtle something that is obviously here in life, is such that I can, and do resonate with a lot of different names for God, and quite freely jump from one to another. She doesn’t seem to mind my jumping from name to name. In fact, She encourages me as I explore Her vast nature. (I like to summarize my current theology as: There is one God, and She is smiling.)

God’s birth name, the one that is on her birth certificate, is, in my understanding,  love. (Doesn’t even need a capital L.)

My current favorite and go-to name (Name)— and inspiration for this somewhat long and meandering essay— is simply  (drumroll, please): Mrs. Life. Life with a capital L.

Mary Baker Eddy suggests Life is one of the synonyms for God. And recently, for a brief season, I used just that synonym to replace the word “God” when reading spiritual literature or talking with friends about this subject. (In the beginning Life created the heavens and the earth.) I have found that using synonyms—putting things into my own words–helps me see things, understand things a little more clearly. Seeing things more clearly helps me relax.

The word Life, at least for me, has a lot less traditional baggage than the words God, or Abba, or Allah, or Amma or Brahma or Nityananda (“Eternal Being”), though all the words  point to the same “Something.”  There’s obviously nothing wrong with these traditional names, (Names).  It’s just that in this season of my life I find myself attracted to David Thoreau’s admonition to simplify simplify.  Exchanging the word Life with a capital L for the word God is simply attractive to me.

However, after using this word Life for a while and sharing it, with some success with fellow travelers, and fellow pilgrims, I recognized that word Life, by itself, was a little too simple, and didn’t fully imply the multidimensional, multifaceted, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent loving potential which that holographic something in fact is.

Yes, we can use the name Mother Life or Father Life. That works. God is happy for us to call Him/Her by any name that resonates for us. It’s not the name that She is interested in. It’s the calling, the turning our attention that She encourages.  

So after playing with Life for a while, an inner door opened up and I saw Mrs. Life as the name (or one of the names) that resonates most deeply with me in this season. Mrs. implies a Mr., just as yin implies a yang. So these days  Mrs. Life is my current go-to name for God. (In the beginning Mrs. Life created the heavens and the earth.)

Mrs. Life seems to encourage my use of such a name, because She is much more talkative these days. Either that or I’m hearing Her better, feeling Her better.  It’s like I have found the name we can both agree upon, at least for this season. And surely, if there are in fact nine billion names for God, as Arthur C. Clarke suggests, then one of these nine billion names might easily be Mrs. Life.

Again, as Lao Tzu  cautioned, “with names one should know where to stop.” As we all know, She (Mrs. Life) can in fact not be captured with any name. (The Tao that can be named is not the real Tao.)

So I’ll stop here.

May Mrs. Life bless you.