David Overmyer

My name is David Overmyer, and I am not certain of this, but I think my father believes I am an atheist, just because I fail to recognize Christianity as the one true religion. He couldn’t be more wrong. I find that I believe in god in all his/her forms. I am an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church, and have been since 2009. Sure, it’s easy to get ordained, but that doesn’t mean I take it any less seriously than a monk, a priest, a rabbi, or any other sacred role. I made the choice to become ordained when I found that people were seeking me out for guidance. Mostly friends and acquaintances, but there were also people I barely met and some that I’d never met before in my life. They just seem to have a feeling that I’d have the answers for them. That’s the strangest thing, I’d be sitting at a bus stop or in a waiting room and the fellow next to me would spontaneously just ask me for advice on something that was troubling him or her. These weren’t simple questions either, they were profound. Questions that I just would not have expected someone to ask of a stranger. Sure, I was taken aback at first, but eventually I simply assumed I either had a friendly look to me, or seemed approachable, or there was just some “thing” that drew people to me. Thus I made the decision that if I was going to take on the responsibility of listening to these people and offering my best guidance, I should have the credentials to ease my conscience about it. Which is the same reason I am sharing this site with you. I’d like to think I have something to offer you that just might make your lives a little more enjoyable and fulfilling.

What is god?

Published February 10, 2016 | By David Overmyer

Now this is a very interesting question. I have heard all kinds of theories, and I’ve had my own. The bottom line is “god is what you make of him or her.”

Personally I think of god as a greater consciousness. An energy field that makes up everything. It surrounds each one of us. It passes through each one of us. It is part of every single living thing. Any item that has, generates, or can store energy is an integral part of god. My father seriously questioned me once, when I mentioned that tress, plants, wind, even sunlight was all in essence, god. The soul is believed to be the energy that fills the body with life, and when that life is cut the soul lives on. I believe that the soul, that energy, that is us for a time, merges back with the greater consciousness and thus lives on. At which point we regain the knowledge of forever as we pass from this life into the next. At some point, some part of our consciousness, will merge with a another part of a consciousness and become someone else and live another life, learn, experience, and grow.

I knew a fellow that embodied god as “star stuff.” This vast being made up of “star stuff”, and as a new life was born, some of the “star stuff” would collect together and create a being that would be born as a child. He, or she, would live their lives and when they passed, the “star stuff” that had created them would ascend back to the stars and become one with the cosmos. I find this to also be a good analogy.

I like both of these analogies, as they both demonstrate the connection from one being to another. It shows how each and every one of us is connected, at a cellular level. Thus harming thy fellow man is in essence harming oneself. You can imagine god in any fashion that you are comfortable with. The key is to understand they through spirituality we can learn to live at peace with our fellow man. If each of us could learn that one simple lesson, then much of the evil in the world, the hate, the bigotry, the violence, the chaos would be removed. Unfortunately, I just don’t see that happening. Nor am I saying to just let the rest of the world run over you. I’ll be the first to throw the second punch. Well, maybe the third. I’ll turn the other cheek the first time around, but if I notice the next blow being readied, I’m not going to stand still and take it. However, that being said, I am also not going to pursue a defeated enemy. I’ll stand up for myself, I’ll say my peace, and then I’ll let it go. Life is too short to hold a grudge. Which is where forgiveness comes in. I like to think that as god gave us freedom of choice, he/she also gave us the will and desire to forgive. However, I’ll reserve that topic for another discussion as it does not follow the core of this post.