If I Were God

Dr. Baute, after a lifetime of listening to people's struggles to find meaning and love, develops a new view of God. Rather than a Supreme Being, Our Father in Heaven, he finds this mystery more verb than noun; more to be discovered in process than in traditional creeds. "The most beautiful thing in the universe is the mysterious," said Einstein. Scientists are finding mystery they cannot explain: the prevalence of dark matter, how quantum particles appear and then disappear, even how we get consciousness from the human brain. In his poem, "If I were God," Dr. Baute proposes that this mystery is to be found in "Passion for justice, thirsting for peace, searching for truth, etc. Many young people today are alienated from traditional forms of faith practice. He writes this for them. This view of God finds echoes in the mysticism of the medieval, the Celtic view of "Thin places, and perhaps also in the Quaker view there is that of God in every human being. Today's digital world requires a rethinking and radical assessment of means of understanding this mystery and of the workings of grace. This small book, featuring one extended reflection of where mystery is to be found today, is offered as a remedy, for discussion and personal exploration. This mystery is not the arrival point of life, but one to be found everywhere in each personal journey. Dr. Baute concludes he poem with: Were I god...I would let myself be glimpsed in sunrises and sunsets, in the wonders of nature, in human loving, in quiet stillness and becoming little in every human story." A second poem "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus" offers a human view of mystery without the Otherness of the supernatural. How does one apply such a view of mystery, in particular when tough times arrive? Anyone can describe a beautiful view of Ultimate Mystery. When the rubber hits the road can tell the story of whether it works. The author is blessed to survive 25 years of stage four cancer. He concludes his story with a description of the attitudes he developed to guide his response toward his cancer: "Twelve Affirmations of the Cancer Survivor."