‘if God is love.’
This was my Dad’s answer to me a few years back before his death. I have been late in sharing this important piece of information.
You might guess what my question was but I hope you don’t rush off without hearing
my story. My Dad the Reverend Guy Meyer, Sr. Now that he is no longer here I have added Sr. to his name frequently. Maybe that gives a hint of some of the dynamics of the father son relationship that we were about. Guy sr. my Dad henceforth in this writing was a Unitarian Universalist Minister whose commitment to social change was the paramount
motivation of his life, not taking away from his survival skills.
My Dad probably in the early or mid 60’s gave a name to his lifelong quest for planetary peace and the well being of ‘the human family’. The New World he called it and on behalf of his cause he preached endlessly. ‘Johnnie one note’ he called himself once, just letting us know that he knew that we knew and that was exactly what he was about. The key to it all he firmly believed was the establishment of a World Government.
Nothing else would solve the problem. He believed that Nationalism was a form of idolatry.
I am going to get to the point or to the question that lies in his answer shortly.
As the ‘60s moved along and the Peace Movement and the Hippie movement were coming into bloom I think he thought he was seeing the opportunity for his New World Movement to really launch. I was not much of a help for him. I just could not relate to his notion that the structure of this greater World Government would be the answer. Maybe I just didn’t have the dedication of his imagination, but I just saw it differently. While he endlessly strategized on how to get the youth behind the ‘New World Movement’.
This was my Dad’s answer to me a few years back before his death. I have been late in sharing this important piece of information.
You might guess what my question was but I hope you don’t rush off without hearing
my story. My Dad the Reverend Guy Meyer, Sr. Now that he is no longer here I have added Sr. to his name frequently. Maybe that gives a hint of some of the dynamics of the father son relationship that we were about. Guy sr. my Dad henceforth in this writing was a Unitarian Universalist Minister whose commitment to social change was the paramount
motivation of his life, not taking away from his survival skills.
My Dad probably in the early or mid 60’s gave a name to his lifelong quest for planetary peace and the well being of ‘the human family’. The New World he called it and on behalf of his cause he preached endlessly. ‘Johnnie one note’ he called himself once, just letting us know that he knew that we knew and that was exactly what he was about. The key to it all he firmly believed was the establishment of a World Government.
Nothing else would solve the problem. He believed that Nationalism was a form of idolatry.
I am going to get to the point or to the question that lies in his answer shortly.
As the ‘60s moved along and the Peace Movement and the Hippie movement were coming into bloom I think he thought he was seeing the opportunity for his New World Movement to really launch. I was not much of a help for him. I just could not relate to his notion that the structure of this greater World Government would be the answer. Maybe I just didn’t have the dedication of his imagination, but I just saw it differently. While he endlessly strategized on how to get the youth behind the ‘New World Movement’.
I turned 18 in 1969 and still hadn’t
decided if I was a pacifist or not, facing the draft how was I to
respond? Would I not lift a gun against an invading army that was
burning my villages?
Trying to steer back to the point …. In many ways Dad came off as a political materialist to me which in fact there is absolutely nothing wrong in the world of politics to be materialistic or deeply pragmatic. Sometimes I wondered how he could miss this unifying element of ‘Spirit’ and if he could see that charting this course for this greater Government entity, without waking people up to the power of the present or even a belief
in ‘God’ might not work or even be a good idea.
The night I asked him might actually have been the night in Inverness that I recited a few lines of the Grateful Dead’s song Ripple to him and he showed some appreciation for the lines.
Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.
So I asked him in his appreciation for the lyrics, and I don’t mean to imply that I know that Hunter and Garcia and the Grateful Dead were advocating some ‘Theism’. But the point of the song and the strength of the song seems to me to resonate that there is something of Life that we perhaps ordinarily don't know or recognize.
So I asked him … ‘Do you believe in God?’
And he started out with. ‘Well I don’t believe in some White Haired old guy’ which of course I knew, and in hearing this my mind was already going - why do people of Liberal
thought always assume that the Conservative world has that belief? Wondered even in my if it was Liberal people who believe ‘God ‘ is White Haired old guy, and that’s why they choose to non-believe. Who knows what people believe to be God.
I can’t even remember if I actually said some of these thoughts to Dad, I might have but I remember that he had paused and then he said. ‘If God is Love then I believe in God.’
‘If God is Love…
I am reflecting and reverberating with the idea and I ponder what are the possibilities of Life on Earth if we as the people of this Planet, tried that notion out.
On this day I still believe that a truth is resonating within us all, I believe that Dad’s notion of a ‘New World’ will come to pass though maybe not as he wrote it out, and it may not be that far off, I still do not believe in the centralization of authority as in our over reaching Federal Government’s and even well intentioned World Governments but I believe that localities and communities across the Planet need to rule and waken to their responsibility and power to alter the world, The New World is within us. We will get to a Peaceful Planet with care and opportunity for all. If you believe and act accordingly.
Trying to steer back to the point …. In many ways Dad came off as a political materialist to me which in fact there is absolutely nothing wrong in the world of politics to be materialistic or deeply pragmatic. Sometimes I wondered how he could miss this unifying element of ‘Spirit’ and if he could see that charting this course for this greater Government entity, without waking people up to the power of the present or even a belief
in ‘God’ might not work or even be a good idea.
The night I asked him might actually have been the night in Inverness that I recited a few lines of the Grateful Dead’s song Ripple to him and he showed some appreciation for the lines.
Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.
So I asked him in his appreciation for the lyrics, and I don’t mean to imply that I know that Hunter and Garcia and the Grateful Dead were advocating some ‘Theism’. But the point of the song and the strength of the song seems to me to resonate that there is something of Life that we perhaps ordinarily don't know or recognize.
So I asked him … ‘Do you believe in God?’
And he started out with. ‘Well I don’t believe in some White Haired old guy’ which of course I knew, and in hearing this my mind was already going - why do people of Liberal
thought always assume that the Conservative world has that belief? Wondered even in my if it was Liberal people who believe ‘God ‘ is White Haired old guy, and that’s why they choose to non-believe. Who knows what people believe to be God.
I can’t even remember if I actually said some of these thoughts to Dad, I might have but I remember that he had paused and then he said. ‘If God is Love then I believe in God.’
‘If God is Love…
I am reflecting and reverberating with the idea and I ponder what are the possibilities of Life on Earth if we as the people of this Planet, tried that notion out.
On this day I still believe that a truth is resonating within us all, I believe that Dad’s notion of a ‘New World’ will come to pass though maybe not as he wrote it out, and it may not be that far off, I still do not believe in the centralization of authority as in our over reaching Federal Government’s and even well intentioned World Governments but I believe that localities and communities across the Planet need to rule and waken to their responsibility and power to alter the world, The New World is within us. We will get to a Peaceful Planet with care and opportunity for all. If you believe and act accordingly.
