The emails came after I wrote a 500-word prayer for Hurricane Helene victims. I had no idea my words would invite so many different opinions on God. I received emails from exotic places all over the world including Illinois.

“Sean, you’re an IDIOT!” writes one emailer. “How can you believe that your prayer will help anything? God is a fake!”

“Your God is a tyrant,” said another.

“How do you reconcile the Christian faith with all the terribleness in the world? A pastor friend tells me that, ‘you just have faith.’ I say BS.”

“A prayer?” one person wrote. “Seriously? Didn’t YOUR sociopathic God send Hurricane Helene? …I agree with the previous commenter—you’re an idiot.”

But I’m not offended. Namely because these people can’t hurt me; I grew up with Rapture Anxiety.

I was raised by staunch evangelicals who did not believe in buying life insurance because it was considered gambling. In fact, the God these emailers are referring to is the American Evangelical God.

It took me years to figure out that my screwed-up idea of God came from American evangelicals

And Americans are colonists. We descended from colony-building ancestors. We’re always building stuff. It’s who we are. Americans are the only people in the world who can look at a virginal Appalachian valley and say to ourselves, “What a great spot for Pigeon Forge!”

We’re like ants. We colonize, then we boss other ants around. That’s how it works. And that’s sort of how we see God.

Always building colonies. Always growing. Like a small business.

But never mind. Colonialism also means we MUST have rules. That’s how manmade stuff works—to “rule” things you need “rules.” No rules equals chaos. Thus, American towns have laws. American neighborhoods have HOAs. Schools have dress codes. Interstates have highway patrolmen. Our government has the IRS. And we associate God with a bunch of rules.

Even our churches have rules. They have to because WE built them. Thankfully, church rules are pretty simple. Don’t drink. Don’t smoke. No premarital relations because this leads to dancing.

The problem is, of course, God isn’t an American Evangelical. He’s not a colonist, either. Moreover, He’s never been much of a rule follower. God is a wild and crazy guy. He is unafraid of chaos. In fact he invented chaos.

Remember, for example, that one time God told a 90-year-old Hebrew guy to cut off the foreskin of his you-know-what? You don’t think THAT’S chaos? Imagine attending a family reunion and your nonagenarian grandfather hobbles out of the kitchen brandishing a bread knife, saying, “Hey guys, guess what God told me to do!”

I bring all this up because I freely admit, I know nothing about God. In fact, the only thing I know about God is that I am clueless.

God is a great mystery. To me, God is physics. He is chemistry. He is biology. He’s is art. God is not Algebra II.

I do not believe, however, that God is a celestial Santa Claus, rewarding good little boys and girls, and punishing all who maintain a regular subscription to M.A.D. Magazine.

I believe God is more than that. He’s the pH of our soil. He is photosynthesis. He is in the electrical impulses of each heartbeat. God is in the eyes of each newborn. He is in the death of a loved one. He is present in every trauma. Even hurricanes.

He is not distant. He does not live in outer space. He is here. Right now. He is in the floodwaters and the earthquakes. He is in the midst of every war.

He is present in the midst of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and human trafficking. He is in the hands of every rescue worker. He is the smile of every helper.

God is love. This is all I know. This is all I want to know. If I could understand him, He would cease to exist.

So I guess it’s a good thing I’m an idiot.