The Word – the fundamental truth and divine spark of Creation – is within each of us. It has been described in a million ways by the world’s philosophies and religions, each capturing a different aspect of what is so deep as to defy description. Paradoxically, the Word is beyond words – and yet in our deepest heart, each of us knows it.
What does it mean to be made “in the image and likeness of God”? Some interpret that to mean that God “looks like us” – but God does not look like anything we could describe; God encompasses all things and is innate within all things. We are like God not in the physical sense, but in that we carry the Word within us, and the fundamental goal of every person – after all longings for wealth, status and influence have fallen away – is to express the Word through our lives in the world, to bring it into form.
But what does this have to do with government? It is this: Each of us longs to live in a society that
- ensures our safety,
- fosters our growth,
- supports a structure of community that provides the resources we need and offers a sense of belonging, and
- protects and encourages our involvement in decisions that affect us.
Safety, growth, community, and involvement are universal human needs, and require structures that we mutually agree to live by. We call this government. It does not have to be a “necessary evil” – or any kind of evil. Government can be a sacred expression of our humanness, founded in our individual and collective covenant with God – if we want it enough, if we are willing to work for it. Government that supports and protects the common good does not need to interfere with the individual desire to create, to achieve, to build a better life – quite the opposite, it supports that desire for the greatest number, and thereby fertilizes the ground for a society rich in innovation and growth.
At the foundation of responsible and responsive government is civilization, the willingness to make and keep covenants with our neighbors for the common good.
At the foundation of civilization is language, the ability and willingness to communicate meaningfully and honestly.
At the foundation of language is the Word, the fundamental truth of our relationship with God, carried within each human soul.
When language is used to mislead or deceive, when meaning is deliberately corrupted, we are attacked at the very core of our humanness. We can see how deception is used to get us to support a candidate or a principle against our own interests, to create a false desire for things or for power over others, or to inflame conflict between people whose natural relationship would be one of unity. On a deeper level, deception undermines our trust in our own judgement, our sense of truth. On a deeper level still, it seeks to undermine our relationship with God, which is also, fundamentally, our relationship with ourselves.
Our losses as a society have been great. We fear for the future of democracy. We fear for the future of the Earth. The institutions that we trusted to protect our future seem to be failing us. And – the great gift of this moment is that our disillusionment is also a bridge to the deep and meaningful change we needed all along – but were not ready to embrace.
This moment of history calls us to embrace a new idea of the possible – to feel our deepest knowing of how human beings are meant to live in the image and likeness of God, and to believe that government can embody those ideals. The earth will support our vision – the resources we need are in place, both in the physical world, and in our wisdom and strength. This does not imply a religious government – but one where the sacred and secular are brought together, honoring all beliefs, where all that we do is informed by deep respect for each other as equally precious children of God.