freedom to experience the Divine

How Big Is Your God? The Freedom to Experience the Divine (2007) by Paul Coutinho, SJ is a book about relationships, specifically the relationship each one of us has with God. Coutinho is an Indian-born priest, his worldview greatly influenced by Eastern religions and mysticism. Yet, if that's not your thing, don't let it keep you away. Coutinho's message is purely Christian, that a God who loves us and wants a personal relationship with each one of us.

In a series of very short chapters/meditations, well-illustrated with stories and metaphors, Coutinho guides us toward that relationship. He also describes some of the roadblocks to experiencing divinity. Coutinho's writing is full of questions and challenges and I think it would be worth rereading as each read would lead to different conclusions. In fact, I think everyone will come away with something different from this book just as each person experiences God in a different way.

Here are some of my favorite passages:
How often in my life do I compromise the values that are most precious to me in my relationship with God because I want to keep my boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse. How often do I keep my mouth shut in church so I can protect the good opinion that people in my parish have of me, when I think and feel differently because of my relationship with God? How often do I remain silent in the face of injustice, when my relationship with God demands otherwise? -- p. 70
The Good News that Jesus came to give us is freedom -- not freedom from suffering, sickness and death, but freedom that we experience in suffering, in sickness, and in the face of death. -- p. 78
If you want a relationship with God, you must make space in your life for the spiritual. In a church where I once served, we would call the last Sunday of the month "BAD Sunday." What was BAD Sunday? It was Basement Attic Disposal Sunday -- and it was wonderful. Everyone was invited to go into their basement and attic and bring something they found there to church. -- p. 88
We are enslaved by people, places, and things that we do not fully enjoy. How do we free ourselves? By enjoying them. If you haven't enjoyed something and you are attached to it, do not give it away yet. If you do, it will haunt you forever. You will think of it often, fret over it, crave it. The thought of it won't leave you. The way to get rid of material things is by enjoying them, being grateful for them, and then giving them away: good-bye, gone. -- p. 91
Change is not a miracle. Change doesn't just happen. We have to make it happen. We have to work at it -- but it is not always difficult. In fact, sometimes it is so easy that we don't believe that it's possible, we don't believe that we can change. The Buddha is supposed to have said that change is as easy as flipping a coin to the other side. What I believe is that if you want change, you will change. -- p. 145
Jesus said that if we believe, we can do the same things he did. In fact, Jesus assured us that if we believe, we do even greater things than he. -- p. 158 ( )