This is Holy Week--a holier Holy Week, in fact, than usual. Passover began Monday night and this Sunday is "Western Easter" as well as Greek Easter (they coincide periodically), so God is getting his/her due.

But whose God--and who is God?

That answer varies, depending on which of the aforementioned groups you study. Is God a jealous God, a vengeful God, a warrior God, a God of power and might, a God who keeps promises, or a God of love and mercy? Many of these descriptions can be heard in places of worship on a given weekend. Is God the "Lord?" Is God a "King?" Those labels are frequently applied as well.

I find that none of them fit--except the God of love.

Why we continue to employ the titles of feudalism (Lord) and monarchy (King)--other than entrenched familiarity--is beyond me. Those epochs ended long ago. And we still use the vocabulary of "sacred sucking up" when we refer to our respective liturgies as "worship." What we're trying to do is "connect," it seems to me, not make a display of fealty (or "fear of the Lord"), so we ought to call it something else. "Religion," after all, comes from the Latin word "to bind" or "attach," not "grovel."

I don't know for certain if God exists--though I hope God does and I live as if God did. Ultimately (so to speak), I think "God" is a construct of our limited minds, attempting to convey a reality we can only intuit--that which transcends all we know. A meta-metaphor. The reality it points to is a mystery--utterly other. Yet near in some way I can't explain. A silent presence that I sometimes "feel."

I hear and read in the Bible that God is the great protector. That He (always "he") makes and keeps promises. That when bad things happen to good people, there's a reason. We don't know what it is, but it seems critically important that there be a reason. People ask, "How could a loving, just God allow this to happen?" and then agonize over the answer. We talk so often about God keeping promises, I wonder if we're covering over our doubts. Judging by the stories in the Old Testament, we're led to believe God is an angry God who intervenes on behalf of his chosen people (sometimes) and brutally punishes them when they lose faith (often).

But if such a God ever existed, he, she (or otherwise) isn't that way today. If we're honest about our experience, we would admit that God is, first and foremost, silent. Silent to the point of deafening. How we relate to that silence is the key to spirituality.

I don't view God as a promise-keeper--not due to unreliability or indifference, but because God never made me any promises in the first place. Neither do I blame God when bad things happen because I don't believe that's in God's job description.

On the other hand, I've never felt forsaken. God is just there, the silent one--maddeningly silent sometimes--but always there. Not judging, not pulling strings, just there. Strange, yet familiar. An odd God. Impersonal, yet personal. Comforting and not. A contradiction. Utterly other, love being what connects us--all of us. Without love, we're isolated, in "hell;" with love, we enter "the kingdom of heaven."

Though I don't feel judged by this silent omnipresence, I do feel high expectations. Never disappointment, just steady, unrelenting, high expectations. Encouraging me to be more than I am now. Much, much more than I am now.

At church on Sundays, we profess a "creed," but sometimes I think we would be better off professing an "anti-creed" because we have a better shot at stating what God is not:

God is not a promise-keeper; God does not make bad things happen to us; God does not abandon us; God is beyond imagining, but not beyond sensing; God is not violent and does not condone violence; God is not jealous; God is not vengeful; God does not require our "worship;" God is not a God of fire and brimstone.

What God is we'll someday find out--in due time, and that will be soon enough.

In the meantime, living up to those expectations will keep us occupied.