It is common to seek spiritual help during very difficult times. But in this period of fear of the coronavirus, with many people turning away from religion, some struggle to find words and connections that can provide support and encouragement.
Spirit of life and fear of coronavirus
Compassion, wisdom, and virtue are found within all that is truly human. I think, for example, of patience, generosity, forgiveness and tolerance. This universal life spirit has an infinite capacity to make good things happen amidst the chaos and fury of worldly events. The beauty found in nature, the life force found in healing and growth, and the vastness of the universe of stars also come to mind.
According to spirituality writers, we can experience a higher transpersonal state of consciousness in which we feel connected to this formless, invisible, cosmic spirit of life.
It permeates everything and is interpreted according to specific cultural contexts. Jews refer to it by the name Yahweh, Christians by the name of Christ, Hindus by the name of Krishna or Shiva, etc. However, all of these share the consciousness of an invisible Spirit that is present throughout the universe and in a sense transcends the physical universe.
Materialists reject such an idea of superior origin. For them, the fundamental explanation of human characteristics and evolution is an accident of chance with no underlying purpose. The atheist evolutionist finds no difficulty in accounting for pain, hatred, and evil. These are woven into the fabric of evolutionary theory. He believes that altruistic kindness is nothing more than a natural instinct. One that protects yourself and your close relatives for the sake of survival.
However, there is a bit of an enigma for those outside of religion, who intuitively feel that there is a greater entity beyond ourselves. The question is how to connect with this Spirit and seek its help in relation to the fear of the coronavirus.
Image of the spirit of life
It is easier to relate to our spiritual source if we can see it with our mind’s eye. If it has a naturally conceivable shape. We need some image to fixate on. Otherwise it would be a vague abstraction for us.
In an inner vision vision, a mystic wrote about what he considered to be his divine Source. It appeared to him as a sun, similar to our own sun in the sky, far above human beings. He felt its warmth and light that he interpreted as the warmth of love and the light of wisdom. He claimed that it represents the divine origin of the goodness of compassion and the truth of wisdom, all that is good and true.
If we are afraid of the coronavirus and want to commune with the universal spirit of all that is good, we need to have an image that works for us.
Human male deities
Roman gods were thought to have human form. The God of the Jews was a human figure speaking to Moses. Hindu gods have human form. The notion that there is a divine source that is human is central to the Christian message. God the Father or God the Son, choose your option.
Not just human, but generally male. It is not a comfortable image for us who believe in the equality of values of the sexes. Society in the past has been organized around male authority figures, resulting in injustice to women. And the culture still tends to prioritize the male point of view, in many places.
This notion that our divine source is a male person is something that understandably alienates many people from religion. The negative connotation of traditional religion is a masculine symbol of control. Perhaps a punitive figure capable of raging. We cannot consider seeking the help of an angry controlling judge in heaven who has often been linked to sexism, war, racism, ecological exploitation. How could we want some kind of personal relationship with such a being? Hence the rise of spirituality and the fall of religion, especially in Western Europe.
However, many Christians today have a new and different concept of God. For example, although the Bible apparently has a male deity in Christ, many believers, after his death and resurrection, think of him as a male figure in a more allegorical than literal way.
The Christ within
The 18th century spiritual philosopher, Emanuel Swedenborg, wrote his books from the perspective of the Christian tradition. He called God, the Lord, because he identified this spiritual Source, with the divinely human. According to Christian tradition, he held the idea that human beings were created in the image of God.
However, his idea of the divine human was not an individual human being. Neither man nor woman. For him, the divine Being and the spirit of life, as creator of both man and woman, transcends gender. Consequently, in his books, which he wrote in Latin, he avoided any indication of masculine or feminine gender in God.
I would say that the Divine Being, not having gender means something important. We, both men and women, have the potential to channel divinity into life. We can do it according to our own gender disposition.
Personal God and fear of the coronavirus
Religious believers, like others, may fear the coronavirus. The practice of Christian prayer focuses on God as a person.
Those who favor a personal God suggest that any idea of God as an infinite force or abstract law behind the facts of science, other than Divine Human, actually makes God something less than ourselves.
It is argued that without our sense of the human dimension of God there would be no point in seeking the benefit of communication through prayer and no possibility of feeling God’s personal presence.
God as divine humanity means that we can use the word “you” when addressing the divine Spirit.
This you-me relationship allows a sense of trust and acceptance to develop. Feeling accepted as ‘a person with warts and everything’ allows us to be honest about our need to improve as human beings. This sense of trust helps us to trust our God to find peace and calm in a hectic world and where there is fear of the coronavirus.
“Oh Lord, I am afraid of the coronavirus. Help me to trust you, help me to know that you are with me, and help me to believe that nothing can separate me from your love. “