Saving for later the argument about whether God exists at all (no--here's a better idea: let's skip that argument completely), let me first explain why I use the word God, when I could just as easily use the words Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu or Zeus. Alternatively, I could call God "That," which is how the ancient Sanskrit scriptures¹ say it, and which I think comes close to the all-inclusive and unspeakable entity³ I have sometimes experienced. But that "That" feels impersonal⁴ to me--a thing, not a being--and I myself cannot pray to a That. I need a proper name, in order to fully⁵ sense a personal attendance. For this same reason, when I pray, I do not address my prayers to The Universe, The Great Void, The Force, The Supreme⁶ Self, The Whole, The Creator, The Light, The Higher Power, or even the most poetic⁷ manifestation⁸ of God's name, taken, I believe, from the Gnostic gospels: "The Shadow of the Turning."

I have nothing against any of these terms. I feel they are all equal because they are all equally adequate and inadequate⁹ descriptions of the indescribable. But we each do need a functional¹⁰ name for this indescribability, and "God" is the name that feels the most warm to me, so that's what I use. I should also confess that I generally refer to God as "Him," which doesn't bother me because, to my mind, it's just a convenient personalizing pronoun, not a precise anatomical description or a cause for revolution. Of course, I don't mind if people call God "Her," and I understand the urge to do so. Again--to me, these are both equal terms, equally adequate and inadequate. Though I do think the capitalization of either pronoun is a nice touch, a small politeness in the presence of the divine.

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