God-Talk: Language for the Inexpressible

Words fail, and still we speak.

Study from a Statue of a River God, Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1880, Public Domain

In my work, you’ll notice I use the word God often. I do this deliberately—not to exclude, but to invite. Not to preach, but to point. I believe that in our modern rush to avoid religious baggage, we’ve sometimes lost touch with the power of God-language to evoke wonder, mystery, and intimacy with something greater than ourselves. That said, I want to be clear: when I say “God,” I don’t always mean “a man in the sky” or a deity of a specific tradition.

Like many, I once flinched at the word God. I had inherited a narrow image—an anthropomorphic figure who monitored behaviour and handed out blessings or punishments. But life, study, and contemplative practice have expanded my view. God, to me now, is just one of many names for the Great Mystery—the source and ground of all being, both transcendent and immanent. Sometimes I say “God,” other times “Divinity,” "Primeval Force," “Source,” “the Absolute,” “Christ,” or simply “Love.”

Language is limited. It bends under the weight of what it tries to carry. Theologians and mystics throughout history have all acknowledged this, whether they used the Trinity, Brahman, or Tao. In Christian mystical traditions, the phrase “God is beyond all names and forms” is not heresy, but a gateway to deeper reverence.

Still, I use God because it connects us to a lineage of longing, struggle, and transcendence. I use it because it is familiar. But please know: when I use masculine pronouns, it is not to affirm patriarchy. When I refer to biblical metaphors like “Father” or “Son,” it is not to exclude feminine or non-binary expressions of the Divine. These are just words—vessels—pointing toward the Unnameable.

You are invited to substitute your own words as you read or listen. Let them change shape in your heart. Whether you call it God, Allah, Brahman, Sophia, the Ground of Being, or refuse to call it anything at all, what matters is that you sense the depth these words attempt to touch.

In the end, what we’re talking about isn’t language—it’s Reality. It’s Love. It’s a Mystery. And that belongs to all of us.

Here is a list of names for the unnamable that I have come to love:

• The Ground of Being

• The Unnamable

• Source

• The Real

• The Great Mystery

• Being-Itself

• Primeval Force

• Radiant Darkness

• The Living Flame of Love

• The Light Beyond the Light

• Womb of the World

• Breath of All That Is

• Eternal Now

• Christ (esp. in its cosmic sense)

• Logos (The Word)

• Abba

• Emmanuel

• Sophia (Divine Wisdom, often feminine)

• The Cloud of Unknowing

• The Anointed One

• Saccidananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss)

• The Unborn

• Tathata (Suchness)

• Great Spirit

There is no single name for the Infinite. Speak the one that breaks you open. Choose the one that steadies your breath, that wraps itself around your longing, that meets you in the silence when language falls away.

Live like dust lit by fire,

Nicho