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3. The G-word
As the queen explained to Alice, words mean whatever we say they mean. Especially religious words.

How much overlap is there between the "God" of the Southern Baptist televangelist, the "God" of the Jesuit parser of the Bible, and the "God" of Saint Teresa in the throes of mystical transport?

The word is useful shorthand when preaching to the choir. With an audience of the like-minded, you can speak freely, proudly of "God" and everyone will applaud your heavenly vision and reward you fittingly when the collection plate is passed. Or, on a more intellectual plane, your like-minded audience will publish your books and give you tenure in the more desirable schools of theology.

If one could somehow make a God-map of the world, based on the countless usages and understandings of the word, the map would be as much a patchwork as the more familiar political map we see every day. Some personify the concept behind the G-word, some de-personify it, some subdivide it (the father, the son, and the holy ghost), some create whole pantheons of lesser and greater deities behind which may—may!—lurk some greater Something, and so on.

In addition to the usual, well-known denominational G-word provinces and countries, there are those containing the doubters and questioners (the agnostics) and those who are not only anti-G-word but anti-G altogether (the atheists).

Huxley, in his survey of reports of what he calls the unitive experience across history and cultures, retained the G-word throughout, apparently feeling that the vast context he was creating was so overwhelming that it would sweep from the reader’s mind all of the old religious baggage attached to the word.

We seemingly are supposed to read a poem by the Persian mystic Rumi and discard all limiting connotations of the G-word as we follow the poet into realms beyond all words:

      Past and future veil God from our sight;
      Burn up both of them with fire. How long
      Wilt thou be partitioned by these segments, like a reed?
      So long as a reed is partitioned, it is not privy to secrets,
      Nor is it vocal in response to lip and breathing.

Lucky the reader so unspoiled.

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