When people are going through a rough time I often hear them say, “How could God let this happen?” When a child dies or someone is murdered they ask why God let it happen. My own dad believes dead is dead and there is no such thing as God because his father suffered a very long, lingering and painful illness. My dad says he refuses to believe in a God that would let his father suffer and die that way. He has spent most of his life angry and feeling betrayed. Now that he is getting ready to die, it is sad to watch his anger and fear control his life.

Long ago I realized the only answer God has to any of our prayers is, “Yes.” If we believe in fear, God will allow us to manifest our deepest fears. I believe that the energy of creation is so expansive and unconditionally loving that it allows us to do whatever we want. God knows the universe is childproof. We are eternal so no matter what we do to each other we can never die or be harmed in any way. Certainly our bodies are fragile but after all we are a limitless, eternal and infinite energy living inside a body.

When I look at nature I see God. The beauty and perfection of the earth, the magic of the stars, the vastness of the universe and the smell of the earth when it rains. To me those are all manifestations of God, the Goddess, the Great Spirit or whatever you choose to call the energy of creation. When I see war, violence and disease I see the results of our filter system and certainly not God.

We live in a universe that is perfectly designed so that we all have the opportunity to see the results of our beliefs, agreements and assumptions. Right now society reflects the results of a world built on domination in which we align ourselves with duality rather than remembering our limitless nature. Our conflicts are the result of our similarities and not our differences. We are made of star dust and we are all one regardless of what we believe.

Life is and then we tell ourselves a story. We never see life directly. What we see is the energy of creation distorted by our filter system. Our story is based on our filters: our beliefs, agreements and assumptions. If we change our filters we can transform our experience of life.

I am about to go to Egypt again. The first time I went I took a group of people on an adventure in the middle of the night. My main focus was on creating a profound spiritual experience with the group. We had an awesome time and in the morning I found out we had walked through a riot in which several people were killed. Same location, different filter system and very different experience.

Today I am putting my beloved cat to sleep. Her furry little body will no longer house her loving spirit. I could ask myself, “How could God let this loving cat get sick?” or I could focus on what a gift she has been and what a gift it is that I can stop her physical suffering. I could have a lot of grief or gratitude. My mom was killed many years ago by a careless driver. At the time I was angry, but now I see what an incredible gift her sudden death was. Her death was a profound invitation for me to stay angry or not. I allowed it to become the beginning my spiritual journey. I think of God as that pure energy of creation. I find asking myself what I want to create much more freeing than reacting to what I have already created.

Do I want to react or act? Do I want to choose love or fear? Do I want to see the incredible perfection of an earth where people can choose war or peace, love or hate and everything in between or do I want to judge people for their choices?

What a gift it is that God allows it all to happen. We can experience what we are as well as what we aren’t. All the colors of the rainbow exist and so do a lot of other colors we can’t even see!