You Can't Use the "G" Word

I've been told time and again that you can't use the "G" word.  Which means they are saying that I can't talk about G*d.  I've been hearing this for almost 30 years now, people warning me away from mentioning G*d, saying it's too scary, too religious, too heavy with implied meaning, too traditional, too old-fashioned, and that's just for starters.

I'm so sad at all the ways religion has destroyed the name of G*d for so many of us, sad at all the ways that it means something bad, awful, negative, hurtful, hateful, destructive, meaningless, irrelevant, restrictive, and misunderstood.

My own relationship with G*d isn't about religion or even belief.  It's about experience.  The experience of complete belonging, of unconditional love, or unquestioning acceptance, of peace and purity and power, of all the good things ever imagined embodied in one divine being.

So I don't know what to do with people saying I can't use the "G" word.  What else is there to talk about?  What else is there to say?  How could I talk about my life without G*d?  I've tried to accommodate these concerns, dance around the name, use language that might make others more comfortable.

But the reality is that I'm completely comfortable talking about G*d.  I'm even comfortable saying "He", since English offers no better gender-neutral pronoun.  And I think if I get distracted by everyone else's limitations, I can't express what I have to share.  Otherwise I'll have no room to just be able to talk, use ordinary language and normal conversation to communicate.


I don't know the way around this, so I'm just going to have to go through it.