Fear of coronavirus – who to pray to?

It is common to seek spiritual help during very difficult times. But in this period of coronavirus fear, with many people turning away from religion, some struggle to find words and connections that can provide support and encouragement.

Spirit of life and fear of coronavirus
Compassion, wisdom, and virtue can be found within all that is truly human. I am thinking, for example, of patience, generosity, forgiveness and tolerance. This universal spirit of life has an infinite capacity to make good things happen amidst the chaos and fury of worldly events. The beauty found in nature, the life force found in healing and growth, and the vastness of the universe of stars also come to mind.

According to spirituality writers, we can experience a state of higher transpersonal consciousness in which we feel connected to this formless, invisible cosmic spirit of life.

It permeates everything and is interpreted according to specific cultural contexts. Jews refer to it as Yahweh, Christians as Christ, Hindus as Krishna or Shiva, etc. However, all of these share the consciousness of an invisible Spirit that is present throughout the universe and, in a sense, transcends the physical universe.

Materialists discard any idea of ​​higher origin. For them, the fundamental explanation of human characteristics and evolution is a random accident without an underlying purpose. The atheistic evolutionist finds no difficulty in explaining pain, hate, and evil. These are woven into the fabric of evolutionary theory. He believes that altruistic kindness is nothing more than a natural instinct. One that protects you and your close relatives for the sake of survival.

However, there is a bit of a puzzle for those outside of religion, who intuitively feel that there is a greater entity beyond ourselves. The question is how to connect with this Spirit and seek its help in relation to the fear of the coronavirus.

Image of the spirit of life.
It is easier to relate to our spiritual source if we can see it with our mind’s eye. If it has a naturally conceivable form. We need some image to hold on to. Otherwise, it would be a vague abstraction to us.

In an insight vision, a mystic wrote about what he considered his divine Source. He appeared to her as a sun, similar to our own sun in the sky, high above human beings. He felt her warmth and light from him, which he interpreted as the warmth of love and the light of wisdom. He claimed that it represents the divine origin of the goodness of compassion and the truth of wisdom, all that is good and true.

If we are afraid of the coronavirus and want to commune with the universal spirit of all that is good, we need to have an image that works for us.

human male deities
Roman gods were thought to have human form. The God of the Jews was a human figure who spoke to Moses. Hindu gods have human form. The notion that there is a divine source that is human is central to the Christian message. God the Father or God the Son, you choose.

Not just human, but generally male. It is not a comfortable image for those of us who believe in the equal value of the sexes. In the past, society has been organized around male authority figures, resulting in injustice to women. And the culture still tends to prioritize the male point of view, in many places.

This notion that our divine source is a male person is something that understandably turns many people away from religion. The negative connotation of traditional religion is a masculine symbol of control. Perhaps a punitive figure capable of angering. We cannot contemplate seeking help from an angry controlling judge in the sky that has often been linked to sexism, war, racism, ecological exploitation. How could we want any kind of personal relationship with such a being? Hence the rise of spirituality and the fall of religion, particularly in Western Europe.

However, many Christians today have a new and different concept of God. For example, although the Bible apparently has a male deity in Christ, many believers, after his death and resurrection, think of him as a male figure in an allegorical rather than literal way.

The Inner Christ
The 18th century spiritual philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg wrote his books from the perspective of the Christian tradition. He called God, the Lord, because he identified this spiritual Source with the divinely human. In keeping with Christian tradition, he held to the idea that humans are created in the image of God.

However, his idea of ​​the divine human was not an individual human being. Neither male nor female. For him, the divine Being and the spirit of life, as the creator of both male and female, transcends gender. Consequently, in his books, which he wrote in Latin, he avoided any indication of the masculine or feminine gender in God.

I would say, the Divine Being, not having a gender means something important. We, both men and women, have the potential to channel divinity into life. We can do it according to any own gender provision.

Personal God and the fear of the coronavirus
Religious believers like others may be afraid of the coronavirus. The practice of Christian prayer is a focus on God as a person.

Those in favor of a personal God suggest that any idea of ​​God as an infinite force or abstract law behind the facts of science, that he is anything but Human Divine, actually makes God something less than God. ourselves.

It is argued that without our sense of the human dimension of God there would be no point in seeking the benefit of communication through prayer and no possibility of feeling God’s personal presence.

God as divine humanity means that we can use the word ‘you’ when addressing the divine Spirit.

This you-me relationship allows a sense of trust and acceptance to develop. Feeling accepted as ‘a person with warts and all’ allows us to be honest about our need to improve as human beings. This sense of trust helps us to trust our God to find peace and calm in a world that is hectic and where there is fear of the coronavirus.

“Oh Lord, I am afraid of the coronavirus. Help me to trust you, help me to know that you are with me, and help me to believe that nothing can separate me from your love.