The Challenges of Relating to God (Part 2 of 2)

For most of the religious seekers I encounter, the word “God” has been all but emptied of its spiritual power. Even where it is taken in a positive light, it seems often reduced and tamed, representing some sort of assumed and circumscribed notion of holiness or morality. For me, what is challenging about “God”is exactly that it is so emotional, even metaphysically emotional. The relationship to God that is charted out in the Psalms is astormy one, codependent, passionate, confusing, lyal, petulant, sometimes even manipulative. I wanted to find a way to approach [the poems printed in Fischer’s book, “Open to You; A Zen-inspired Translation of the Psalms”] so as to emphasize this relational aspect, while avoiding the major distancing pitfalls that words like “God, King, Lord,” and so on create. My solution was a simple one. I decided to avoid whenever I could all of these words and instead use the one simple English word that evokes the whole notion of relationship: you.  

-Norman Fischer from “When You Greet Me I Bow”