Finding God in a Pickle

I spent time yesterday with a group of wonderful women, doing our yearly treasure-mapping day, where we each create a collage of what we want to create in the coming year. It's a great spiritual tool, and I'll discuss it in a future blog. Today's blog concerns a different topic, though, stemming from our conversation yesterday, when Carrieanna came across the idea in a magazine of "finding God in a pickle."

That struck me as a very juicy subject to ponder, so at MaryAnn's prompting (the gauntlet having been thrown down, so to speak), I tackle the topic of the lowly pickle as a spiritual tool.

Believing as I do that everything is a spiritual tool if you look at it the right way, I considered the possibilities. We can look at this in a number of ways, depending on the word stressed. A less obvious way might be to think about what if we found God, herself, in a pickle, as in a problematic situation? How would we respond to God in a pickle? And what could that pickle be? The possibilities are mind-boggling, current world events notwithstanding. Or, taking that line of thinking a step further, could we then be asking what do we do if we find ourselves, as Gods, in a difficult situation?

Definitely worthy queries, but what about actually finding God in a pickle? And would that be somehow physically manifesting herself in that pickle, or metaphysically speaking? Because metaphysics explains the fundamental nature of being (and because it's pretty funny), I couldn't resist the chance to consider the fundamental nature of God being a pickle.

Which leads to another question: Not all pickles are brined cucumbers, or even troublesome situations. Sometimes a pickle is a sour, disagreeble person. Can God even be a pickle, in that sense of the word? I choose to think so, yes. God can be any darn thing she chooses.

God is everywhere present, in our highest highs and lowest lows, in our jubilent successes and in those moments when we feel we are not worthy of taking up space on the planet. God is the source of every idea ever imagned, including the most modest. God is who we are when we are manifesting our greatest, and also when we're feeling like we'll never get it right. Every expression of us is right.

So back to the humble pickle. Some people don't like them, but some people like them alot. Sometimes they're pale and joyless, other times they're crisp and vibrant. At times they're tart, but can also be pretty sweet. Sounds alot like some people I know. Clearly, God is a pickle.