There is and always has been a spiritual network connecting all of us humans with each other. The electronic Internet is only a very poor reflection of the spiritual net. I have had far too many experiences of having other people know something was up with me and knowing when something was up with others with whom I shared an emotional bond to dismiss this spiritual net.

In my experience this net also keeps us on line with a "God" of many names who is so patient, so subtle, so gentle, so careful not to give us the sense of being pushed around, that God will wait centuries for what God is trying to bring into human society to be accomplished rather than force anything on anyone.

With great subtlety, "God" whispers into our thoughts, paints in our imaginations, sensitizes our hearts in new ways and bubbles up new and deepening awareness from within us. Often we claim these inspirations as our own and take credit for them (which God doesn't mind as long as we accomplish what we're being inspired to accomplish).

Sadly, much of religion is not centered on sensing and responding to God, but on claiming God as our own tribal deity and trying to discover how best to get God to respond to us and the people like us. Those who claim to hear the voice of God so clearly that they can tell others what to do in the name of God have generally substituted their own inner voices, born of psychological dysfunction, for God's voice.

Mostly what God asks of us is care for others: Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort those who mourn, give water to the thirsty, visit those who are sick or in prison. For me the example of the life of Jesus of Nazareth sets the boundaries for what God might be inspiring in me. Anything that doesn't fit that mold is likely to arise from my own unhealed psychological dysfunctions.

One of the great challenges of human society across the face of the earth today is that we are trying to feed our spiritual hunger by material means - with money, status, wonderful toys, and the people who are attracted to us because we have those things. Since feeding spiritual hunger with material resources will never be successful, some among us are doing tremendous damage to our planet and to human societies as they try to accumulate more and more of what will never be enough.

Still God is patient. God is real, and yes, God cares not only about the entire universe and our individual solar system and planet but also about each of us as individual people.

And of course, no matter how you or I might imagine or experience God, considering the limitations of human intellect and awareness, the fact remains true for all of us humans: "Your God is too Small."

The final question which God's presence in our universe raises for each of us is not whether we have successfully managed to convince God to be on our side, but rather, whether, in the context of our day-to-day lives, we have opened ourselves to God's inspiration and seek, where possible, to be useful to God.

The real question is not so much how, the how is already well along the way to practicality. The question is, when will we be willing to toss those who are profiting in unconscionable ways from our use of fossil fuels as our primary energy sources, and destroying our planet in the process, over the side of this spaceship earth and begin the new era of sustainable and renewable energy? My favorite personal image is the scene where Darth Vader throws the emperor over the railing near the end of the movie "Return of the Jedi."

Those who currently have the government of the United States doing their bidding including using our military forces as mercenaries for their oil interests in the Middle East (mercenaries they get for free courtesy of U.S. tax payers) are no less evil than Emperor Palpatine. It's time for change.

So now Petraeus is saying we need to stop drawing down the "surge." In other words, based on the attacks of the past couple of weeks, it will take the return of every member of the U.S. armed forces we can currently supply just to keep the lid on this thing, which is all we succeeded in doing during the surge. Our troops can look forward to making military outposts in Iraq their first home with occasional vacations back in the U.S. on domestic military bases. Meanwhile, this whole game is costing us what? continuous loss of the lives of U.S. troops and about $100/month for each family in the U.S. to be paid in the future, since it's all being borrowed from the central banks of Japan and China. Is there ANYTHING that's right with this picture?