Saturday is Prose & Poetry Day here on the blog, a time to take a moment once a week to relax the mind, open the heart, and access the soul through the gift of prose from one of the many books of The New Spirituality, and through the poetry of m. Claire, author of the forthcoming volume, Come As You Are.
This week’s prose…an excerpt from Happier Than God, to be published this Fall…
Back in the Sixties there was a bumper sticker that became very popular. It asked: IS GOD DEAD?
The idea behind the question was that humanity had evolved so far, so fast, that we may have rendered God irrelevant. That thought has been reinforced in recent years with the emergence of teachings on what I call the Process of Personal Creation: the purported ability of individuals to create their own reality using nothing more than “positive thinking” and “focused intention.”
I know, of course, that God is not dead. And most people agree with me. Surveys have shown that the largest percentage of people in every nation and in every culture believe in a Power Greater Than Themselves.
Yet if we humans can obtain and acquire anything we want in life using our own power, of what use is a Power Greater? What would be Its function? What would be Its purpose?
The astonishing conclusion that many people are reaching, especially given how the “Fast Track to Happiness” is being taught in some circles today, is that…

…we no longer need God.
Now I’m going to say something that, if you believe in God, is going to make you very happy. But not at first. At first, it may make many of you want to put this book down right here. Don’t do that, because you’re going to miss out on the part that you’ll love.
(If you don’t believe in God, you’re going to find what I’m going to say next at the very least intriguing.)
It’s true.
We no longer need God. In fact, we never needed God.
We do not need God for anything.
This is the startling truth that will stun the world. It is the Unspoken Truth that no one wants to utter. Yet this is not all of the Unspoken Truth. The rest of it has to do with why we do not need God for anything.
The Promise That Few
Can Believe; the Truth
That Few Can Accept
Not needing God is not the same as not having any use for God.
I want to say that twice because it’s too important to be glossed over. I said, Not needing God is not the same as not having any use for God.
In fact, it is precisely because we have an extraordinary use for God that we have no need for God.
How can we “need” something that we always have, that we cannot not have under any circumstances, that we can always use, and that we cannot not use no matter how we might deny that are are?
You cannot not have God in your life, as part of your life, and this is something that many people cannot believe. They can’t believe the highest promise of God: I am always with you, even unto the end of time.
You cannot not use God, even if you deny that you are, and this is something else that many people cannot believe. They can’t accept the most wonderful truth taught by all religions, each in their own way:
Ask and you shall receive.
Because people can’t accept this truth, they completely and utterly misunderstand the formula by which they can create what they wish to experience in their lives.
The Process of Personal Creation—what some people call the “Law of Attraction”—does not render religion or God obsolete, it does exactly the opposite. It makes our experience of God more present, more relevant, and more real than ever.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
This week’s gift of poetry
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I AM THAT I AM
and
so much more:
the Light, the Sound, the Living of God on the Ground.
I could show you every feather
in the Wing.
Every color and hue.
Every Beautiful thing.
But
I AM THAT I AM
wants to
Love
Whatever
has not yet had it
Whomever
has not yet heard it
However
Life’s not yet done it.
There is still so much Loving,
yet to be found,
just
Living God on the Ground.
(I Am That I Am – m. claire – copyright 2007 – all rights reserved)

For more of the work of this new American poet, go to www.mclairepoet.com.