{"id":29,"date":"2010-12-30T22:57:08","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T22:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html"},"modified":"2010-12-30T22:57:08","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T22:57:08","slug":"does-god-have-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html","title":{"rendered":"Does God Have a Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

We were on the road<\/span> to
\nMalinalco, Mexico, when we came upon clusters of people of all ages walking
\nalong the highway. It was surprising and mysterious to me. As we passed
\nfamilies, groups, and individuals, I felt as if I were looking through the car
\nwindow into a world I couldn’t begin to comprehend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the people
\ncarried crosses, some carried flowers, and others carried bags of food and
\nwater. The people seemed intent, and the mood appeared committed but also
\ncontent. Their dark faces were made more beautiful in contrast to the freshly
\nlaundered clothing they were wearing, as if dressed for a special occasion.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Where are they
\ngoing?” I asked. It had been miles since the last town, and it was a very small
\none. “Where have they all come from? Why?”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Have you not seen
\npeople making a pilgrimage before?” my guide Raphael asked me.<\/span><\/p>\n

“They are on the road
\nto Chalma, a sacred place where there’s a cave with a very special altar. It’s
\nthe second most popular site for pilgrimages in Mexico. Hundreds of years ago,
\nNative people would go there to honor and request help from Ozteotl.” Ozteotl
\nwas said to have great healing ability and people visited the cave in order to
\nconnect with his power to help and heal them. Since the time of the Spanish,
\nthe cave has been dedicated to St. Michael and is now known as a place where
\npeople travel to be in the presence of God through miracles and experiences of
\nthe Divine. Pilgrims come as an act of devotion, and they make the journey on
\nfoot to show their deep love and commitment to God.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time, I didn’t
\nunderstand the devotional path, and it made me uncomfortable.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Do you mean it’s
\nsimilar to individuals who are in love saying to their beloved, ‘I’d walk a
\nhundred miles on broken glass if only you’d be mine?'” I asked Raphael. “Or the
\nway people will stand in line for three days to buy concert tickets to see
\ntheir favorite rock group?”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Well, in some ways,
\nyes–it is like that,” Raphael replied. “I think those people say and do those
\nthings because they’ve found a connection to a force that helps them feel loved
\nand understood. I’ve been to rock concerts like that! Everyone sings along as
\nif the songs were about their own lives. They like to be understood and heard,
\nexperiencing a state of devotion. I think that the devotion itself feels good for
\nthem.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“The experience is
\nsimilar for these pilgrims. Unlike adoring a rock star, the force that they’re
\nin love with has the power to work miracles in their lives. Their beloved
\noffers grace and peace. I’ve traveled with pilgrims in the past. Thousands make
\nthe journey every year. Their worship is from the heart, and they want to show
\nit. They want to feel it. For you and me, we feel God in nature. We’re
\ncomfortable with a faceless God who is expressed in the physical world as a
\nforce beyond ideas and words.”<\/span><\/p>\n

I agreed and listened
\nintently.<\/span><\/p>\n

“For these people, God
\nhas a face, and a name. Even the saints have personalities, form, and
\npreferences. These people feel and need a personal relationship to God. They
\ncall upon Jesus by name. They honor Mother Mary by name, and they pray to the
\nsaints for help by name. Love of God is their path. They’re not unsophisticated
\nor foolish. I know great professors, scientists, lawyers, doctors, and other
\nhighly educated people who worship in this way. They connect to the Sacred
\nthrough love. It’s no better or worse than what we are attracted to on
\nmountaintops and in the call of the eagle.”<\/span><\/p>\n

As my practice and
\nexperience have evolved in my life since that day, I’ve developed a very
\ndifferent relationship to the path of devotion. As my experience of the Sacred
\nhas deepened, I’ve felt compelled to relate to God–The Supreme Force and Divine
\nMystery–also as a friend and beloved. It somehow feels incomplete to restrict
\nmy connection to The Sacred to only my mind or body. It’s difficult to focus
\nthe feeling of love for<\/i> something if it has no personal dimension. To
\nthink of God as Pure Consciousness may be accurate, but it’s awkward. The great
\nSufi spiritual teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan once said, “Mysticism without
\ndevotion is like uncooked food; it can never be assimilated.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Excerpted from <\/span><\/i>Return
\nto The Sacred<\/a> <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were on the road to Malinalco, Mexico, when we came upon clusters of people of all ages walking along the highway. It was surprising and mysterious to me. As we passed families, groups, and individuals, I felt as if I were looking through the car window into a world I couldn’t begin to comprehend.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,18,63,22,67],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality","tag-divine-mystery","tag-jonathan-ellerby","tag-pilgrimage","tag-return-to-the-sacred","tag-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes God Have a Name? - Practical Spirituality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does God Have a Name? - Practical Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We were on the road to Malinalco, Mexico, when we came upon clusters of people of all ages walking along the highway. It was surprising and mysterious to me. As we passed families, groups, and individuals, I felt as if I were looking through the car window into a world I couldn’t begin to comprehend.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Practical Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-30T22:57:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jonathan Ellerby\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Does God Have a Name? - Practical Spirituality","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Does God Have a Name? - Practical Spirituality","og_description":"We were on the road to Malinalco, Mexico, when we came upon clusters of people of all ages walking along the highway. It was surprising and mysterious to me. As we passed families, groups, and individuals, I felt as if I were looking through the car window into a world I couldn’t begin to comprehend.…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html","og_site_name":"Practical Spirituality","article_published_time":"2010-12-30T22:57:08+00:00","author":"Jonathan Ellerby","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html","name":"Does God Have a Name? - Practical Spirituality","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-12-30T22:57:08+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-30T22:57:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/#\/schema\/person\/1e6e315f058fe48ff9fbb7e18623a0ee"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/2010\/12\/does-god-have-a-name.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Does God Have a Name?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/","name":"Practical Spirituality","description":"Spirituality","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/#\/schema\/person\/1e6e315f058fe48ff9fbb7e18623a0ee","name":"Jonathan Ellerby","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/895\/8954139ebab28e38697498462f724370x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/895\/8954139ebab28e38697498462f724370x96.jpg","caption":"Jonathan Ellerby"},"description":"Featured as an expert in films, print, television, and radio, Jonathan Ellerby, Ph.D., is the author of \"Return to the Sacred\" and the Spiritual Program Director for the internationally acclaimed Canyon Ranch Health Resort in Tucson, Arizona. Jonathan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s background includes a PhD in Comparative Religion with a focus on health and healing systems, as well as training and work as a hospital chaplain, Interfaith Minister, executive consultant and coach.","sameAs":["http:\/\/jonathanellerby.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/author\/jellerby"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/practicalspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}