I need a God who cares.

I need a God who cares about my issues. I want a God who loves me enough to meet me in the middle, to talk about what really bothers me. And I think you do too.

I'm tired of always being pounded on the head about sin. It's a broken record. Sure, I'm a terrible sinner. We've all done things that we regret, and on occasion cared more for ourselves than for others. If God cares about that, fine! Let's fix it and move on already.

Call it a character flaw, or whatever, and repair the machine or the programming, or whatever it is that makes it work wrong. I'll even take the whole responsibility for breaking it. I don't know how I did it, and I still don't know how to run it correctly, but okay. "Daddy, my train is broke! Can you fix it? Please? " If it's busted beyond repair, can I get a new one? And this time, I want better instructions and supervision before I do something to break it. Hold my hands and don't let me do that, until I know how to use it right.

But enough of that. I don't know anyone, who got a toy for Christmas at three years old, who still has it in working order, unless they just didn't like it enough to play with it. Parents know beforehand that it's going to be broken. My kid loved one toy so much that he kept rubbing holes in it. We bought him the same toy seven times! But today he has one without holes. Good parents care enough to let their kids keep trying until they learn to care enough themselves.

Now, I'm not saying that God isn't a good parent. I'm just saying that He doesn't have to be stuck in only one religion, banging on the same old bell and sailing for the same lighthouse and harbor, for generation after generation. I get it. Sin and crime, vice and abuse, apathy and the shunning of sinners, those are big problems. Right. But it's not getting fixed by the old methods.

I think maybe there's an underlying issue that needs to be dealt with. A really smart God should know what it is, and give us a few more hints on what we need to know to get into it. Maybe we are looking in the wrong place. The threat of punishment is not working. Or maybe it's what has gotten us this far, and it's time for a change, a new next step to choose something that goes even farther.

A truly wise and good God would know us better than we know ourselves, because He knows how we were made and how life works. And being the Greatest Philosopher ever, He knows that we have our own ideas and issues, our own concerns, problems, desires, hopes and dreams. That's what it means to be human and self-aware. The smarter you are, the bigger your dreams. A God without limitations would have truly unimaginable dreams, so huge, amazing and wonderful that He could want them to become real. So here we are. And we can participate in it all.

But what about the perspective of the little players on the ground? We get tired of the same old subroutines, the same old game, building castles and cathedrals, fighting wars, going to work every day, paying taxes. Even trying to find a mate and raise a family can get old, sometimes, when the world adds so many problems, and then the catastrophes ... OMG ?!! Where's my carrot?  I've already experienced the stick. I feel sorry  for the ones who get caught up in the "interesting times" when everything seems to be against them. That's not the kind of "interesting" I would want to see. It's just a hard time, a futile hassle to get through, and a waste of time and effort. So many generations have gone through this, and made so little progress.

Let us get past all of that. We want to do, and become, something better. Let us build some new dreams. A castle in the sky has a whole new type of design, and a whole new level of purpose and meaning. There's a new kind of adventure, a new hope and the opportunity to expand our capacity for understanding. We can build the City of God, not on a hill, but where we can all see it, if we know how to look. And, yes, we still carry with us all of the old baggage of our problems and issues. It is these that we want to find the answers and solutions for. We want to know why we have these, and how to fix them.

This is where we need God to help, to bring out the very best ideas and ideals that we are capable of reaching for. Help us to put aside our self-interests long enough to try to build a new society. One that doesn't program us to care more about our own immediate selfish concerns than about the people around us. One that shows us daily that society cares about us, and is taking care of our needs, and all we have to do is play our part. And when we feel the need to do something different, we can temporarily unplug, until we are ready to come back.

We can't just all be bees in a hive. Some of us also need to be monks in a cave, or wild wanderers, observing nature or seeking adventure. We need to feel that we have the capacity to do things that will make a difference. We want to do something unique, that anyone else would either never think of, or would do quite otherwise. We want a chance to be a hero, or to learn something that none of us ever thought to investigate before. Some of us just want to know who we are, and why we are here, and just playing a part feels like acting in a role we didn't choose.

And everyone has their own issues. Some of us feel like we are out of place, like we just want to go home. Some are fascinated by the deep mysteries of reality. Some are repulsed by materialism, and want to know what it's like to be an unencumbered spirit. And some feel guilty, because they can't follow all of the rules in a super-complex complicated game. While others can't even find the balance when the rules are made simple. Some people, believe it or not, even want to be told what to do all the time, every day, like they don't want to take the responsibility for their own lives. And some want to "go back to nature" and find the harmony of not dreaming of being the steward in the garden, but staying in our own niche for however long that may last. And then, a few (maybe many) want to know what it's all about, and want to meet God face to face, and discuss the big plan and the Infinite Dream.

These are all different ways of being human, but being uncomfortable with the capacity to think too much. There may be a bunch more ways that I missed. And God knows how to relate to each of them. We need a faith, not a religion, that is flexible enough to allow us to meet each person right where they are, in their own existential quest, so that we can understand what is important to them. Then, once we know what the questions are, we can begin to search for the answers.

A society that values the uniqueness of each individual, and supports him, or her, in the quest to find the meaning of their lives, would indeed be a eutopia worth living in. It doesn't have to make it easy to be lazy, but only give us an opportunity to find our own way, while sharing the effort to hold it all together. And we want it to be fair, without "winners" taking advantage, and leaving the "losers" far behind.

We may not need all this "wealth" that we have collected. Knowledge doesn't have to have a material form to be shared with whoever wants it. It only needs to be preserved from being accidentally lost or destroyed. The great philosophers and prophets did not preach about profit and accumulating wealth. A certain degree of comfort, enough to overcome insecurity, and to allow for leisure, is fine. But they told us to remember simplicity and to care for other people, especially those who get cast off, marginalized and broken. We are all broken in some way, and money is not going to fix it. But caring for each other, regardless of how we will be repaid for our efforts, just might be what we all need.

I need a God who understands that being human is not just about obedience, or being good enough. It's about having a heart and a mind, a soul and a spirit. It's about being more than you are allowed to be, and less than you are expected to be. It's about being on a quest to find the answers to questions that are really hard to articulate, and even harder to try to understand. That's why we need the support of other people, and the freedom to go off by ourselves - to seek adventure, or just to think. I need a God who knows how to meet me, right here where I am ... in my heart, where He was the last time I met Him. Where we can speak, and listen. And I don't think that is too much for a religion to imagine, or a faith to encompass.